rewrite the stars
by ksx244
Summary: During the formation of the galaxies, two universes splintered apart and two souls who were never meant to be separated fell into very different dimensions.Leia Organa continued on as a princess in the universe she was meant to be in while Amilyn Holdo grew up in a much more familiar place. Luckily, the universe has its ways of keeping them together. soulmate modern day au,slowburn
1. i

**a/n:** inspired by the tweet:

lancewho: 'lemme get a disney princess who loves space and studies constellations and all she wants is to go to the moon one day

then one day a mysterious girl shows up and she has this amazing outlook on life and she's so alluring

coincidentally, the moon has disappeared from the sky'

it's finally here; i will update this once a week on sundays. this is also available on ao3. enjoy!

* * *

Another day, another twelve hours of waiting for Amilyn Holdo, or to be exact, another thirteen hours, forty-eight minutes, and fifty-six seconds until sundown. She fully believed that the sun only existed to make the other stars look brighter in their dark canvas, logic be damned, and the only useful thing daytime provided her with was the natural light to see her astrology books by. In her island town, she had little to do but study advanced physics she had decided at age fourteen, and would often spend time devoting herself to her studies. Ironically, this irritated her teachers - those whose subjects she glossed over were exasperated at her lack of homework and obvious potential but little drive, and those whose subjects she thrived in didn't know what to do with her - being three years ahead of everyone else apparently resulted in 'a worrying lack of balance'. Though by age sixteen, Amilyn Holdo had found her own balance - it didn't quite align with everyone else's, however.

April was usually Amilyn's favourite time of year - the spring felt fresh in her mind and body, and she got to rise with the sun. Despite this, her preferred time of year had been disrupted - she felt that her chakras were misaligned due to the exam stress her classmates were whipped up in. Even Amilyn herself fell prey to occasional worry (something she had not indulged in since her mother failed to return from a 'shopping trip' five years previously). Her maturation over the past two years meant that she had made up for any distractions from essential (according to the school, anyway) subjects, thus she wasn't in any danger of failing. That didn't mean the zeitgeist of the school didn't poison her self-composure. Not to mention that it was cutting into her stargazing time.

Thirteen hours, forty minutes, and twenty-one seconds after sunrise on a misty day in April, Amilyn led back on her favourite rock in a field in the middle of nowhere. Well, she knew exactly where, right down to the GPS coordinates, but her friends had deemed it so after their interest in the universe wavered after their simple zodiac readings and Amilyn's sixty-third fact about the moon. In lieu of her usual meditation process, she pulled out her battered but precious phone, checking her emails. Her email notification from two weeks ago blinked back at her, solidifying her place at a prominent college on the mainland; their physics department was everything she dreamed of after spending her formative years in the uninspiring archive the island labelled a school. Not to mention their forward-thinking politics program she was to be enrolled in - the island barely had any change, leaving the local politics forever locked in arguments about transport timetables and the arrival of chain stores. That notification was a lifeline to something bigger - not quite as big as actual space of course, but Amilyn was nothing if not concentrated determination fuelling a human body.

The gentle breeze roused Amilyn from her ruminations - even she could not escape the cold clutches that spring could not hide from those exposed. As the solid sun melted beneath the horizon, Amilyn felt the last wisps of true daylight fall into the bottom half of the hourglass. She could not be classed as a mere observer, not when her belief that nature and all its beauty was made out of stardust inexplicably tied her to the world around her. Amilyn's head tilted to survey the figure that had emerged from the shadows of the opposite edge of the field with the wind. Their appearance was not necessarily important to Amilyn, but they had roused her curiosity. Her island residence was small, but no-one aside from Amilyn rarely ventured into the outlands - there were parks closer to home and further away from landfill sites to walk dogs. Yet this figure was not accompanied by a dog, just a backdrop of the twilight and the trail of a shooting star.

 _A shooting star!_ Amilyn's wonder replaced her science for a few seconds as she simply sat in awe of the meteor. It appeared as if the world around her stopped too, the rustle of the leaves was hushed and the birdsong quietened with the passing by of evidence of a larger universe. She wondered where it came from, and if it would survive the ablation of the earth's atmosphere. Suddenly her scientist was back, recording the time, the approximate bearings of the meteor's path (Polaris was out and shining brightly; always a vital extension of Amilyn), and the temperature in her notebook. The last note wasn't necessarily tied to the meteor, more that she just wanted to know what that moment looked like in numbers, and fancied knowing the temperature. The noises around her returned, painting her back into the world. One of those was the unmistakable sound of boots crushing grass, accompanied by the sense of another human presence close by. Stashing her equipment (which was really just her phone, notebook, and binoculars handed to her by the town's librarian from another age) into her ratty white schoolbag, Amilyn faced the figure. If she was the type to assume, Amilyn would assume that they were a woman. However she wasn't, and she wasn't the type to initiate conversation either, so she just stayed perched on her rock and contemplate the figure. Their hair was bound in intricate plaits twisted into buns of either side of their face, which Amilyn admired while being equal parts impressed and envious. Their dress fluttered around their boots, both pieces of fashion white in colour, and feminine in style (again, Amilyn didn't want to assume, but even she acknowledged that her society's conditioning was hard sometimes). This unknown was out of place in a field, with Amilyn - a girl of a similar age but attired in distressed jeans, tye dye top, and platinum blonde hair, they were out of place on the whole island. Amilyn hadn't seen anyone looking like them anywhere, least of all on her isolated island.

"Hello." Their voice was molten gold, enveloping Amilyn and threatening to drown her. "Are you ok?" Their face fell from neutrality to concern at Amilyn's failure not only to respond, but also to keep her face unflushed and her eyes blinking like a normal human being.

"Yes. Um, is there anything you require?" While a little flustered, Amilyn managed to convey her perplexion at, well, the entire situation. Angels like this did not turn up out of nowhere.

They laughed, and the sound danced in Amilyn's head like a wind chime in a hurricane.

"Well, aside from the other needs we all require, food, water, shelter… Do you need assistance? To get back to town maybe?"

"I do need somewhere to stay, yes." They answered after a pause, unafraid to take their time before speaking. "I didn't think you looked like you were one for assuming, though."

Amilyn shifted on her rock. She wished to know more about the mystery presented in front of her, wanted to invite them back to stay with her, but she couldn't take them back to her dilapidated house. With some regret she replied, "There are some B and Bs on the shoreline. The gold-plating on the cheap jewellery."

"B and Bs? What are those?" The mystery was more confused than Amilyn. Studying her, Amilyn wasn't surprised; she had noted that their accent was something she had never encountered before, not to mention her completely foreign fashion style.

"It stands for 'Bed and Breakfast'. You can stay overnight in one of their rooms, and they give you breakfast. For a fee, of course. The golden lands are that way." Amilyn nodded in the correct direction.

The confusion on their face cleared. "Ok. Well, thank you for your time." They made to stride off, however, Amilyn needed another moment with them like she needed oxygen, and lurched forward to grab their wrist. Immediately, they ripped it away from her like they had been burned, their dress aflame. Their eyebrows narrowed, eyes ablaze with anger.

"Sorry, I just," Amilyn snatched her own hand back, fingers curling into her chest for protection. "What is your name?"

Realising that Amilyn wasn't a danger, their shoulders relaxed a little, yet the harshness splayed across their face remained. A final pause sat between the pair. "Leia."

"So you are a woman?" Amilyn's question surprised her addressee, as most did.

"Mostly. You thought otherwise?"

"I am not one for assuming." That caused the woman, Leia, to form a smile that didn't reek of formality. "I'm Amilyn. Holdo, if you ever need to differentiate."

"Thank you, Amilyn. I hope that, should I not find my way home, I will find you again. You have been most kind." And all of a sudden, she had turned on her heel and was marching in the direction that Amilyn had earlier indicated, her figure shrinking with each step.

Unexpectedly, Amilyn found herself alone. She told herself that it was stupid that she somehow did not expect this, but the absence of Leia's presence had left her feeling that something was incredibly wrong in the spatial fabric of the world - or at least, Amilyn's world. Although, most people would say that Amilyn's world was altered in comparison to the real world, leaving the girl confused and a bit lost. Doubting herself, Amilyn unpacked her bag, needing to go over her data from the night to ensure that this was real, and the hard numbers could not escape the laws of logic like the rest of the evening had. The sight of her own looped handwriting, unerased and unfaded pencil scratching the lines of her notebook relieved her, until she looked for her second constant, Polaris. It was still there, bright as ever, yet something was missing. She glossed over her star maps, held them against the darkening sky, but everything was still there. Nothing was concealed in the clear night. Except… she couldn't find the moon! An incredible mass of rock close enough to earth to see with the naked eye that regularly reflected a burning star's light, and she couldn't find it! Amilyn refused to doubt herself as an astronomer at all, let alone to the point that she was so inept she couldn't find the moon, and immediately scribbled a note in her book. Before she could do anything else, a warmth grew in the fingertips of Amilyn's right hand, where she had touched Leia only a minute earlier. Electricity rumbled within her skin, humming until her entire body shook and she could hear nothing but the muted feeling of pressure change, heart racing, breath frequency increasing -

 _White. Nothing but white everywhere - in the girl's dress, in the gold of the jewellery that adorned her mother. An argument, shouting, screaming, the good, tension releasing kind, the ugly, insult-hurling kind. Love and pride featuring the girl-becoming-woman on her Day of Demand. Similar love as the different-familiar girl boarded a ship to - she had Amilyn's hands, she had Amilyn's hands, she had Amilyn's h-_

A choking gasp seized Amilyn back to consciousness. The force of it drove her upwards from her flat back, relying on base instincts to keep her body alive. Her mind was too busy to bother with keeping herself warm, breathing, alive. _What in the hell was that? A seizure? Panic attack?_ Whatever episode had overcome her, it was enough for to have fallen, presumably, from her rock and not relinquish it's hold on her some time - without the sun, twilight had bled into nighttime. Shakily, Amilyn rested herself against the rock, searching for her bag she hoped was still there. It was. A sigh of relief emanated through her, steadying herself. She needed to write what happened down - it was the only exciting (and scary) thing that happened on this sedated island. Once the urge to vomit had passed, she flipped it open to her previously used page, and, under ' _CHECK THE TIDES'_ she scribbled down what she could from her flayed memory, hoping that the future Amilyn could read through the bad handwriting written only in the light of the waxing moon. At least the moon was back; Amilyn had a habit of trusting herself, and she was determined not to break it just because she couldn't find the moon and had a subsequent seizure. Everything she had experienced that night was real, and she was going to ensure that no one would convince her otherwise. Which meant not telling anyone about it, because they had tried to convince her out of much less. She didn't have a problem with her silence; she knew that the right people would believe her, or could be convinced to believe her, and she didn't even mind that the only right person to be trusted with this information was herself.

Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and eleven seconds after sunrise, Amilyn Holdo returned home, with much more information than she had expected to get out of the night. She had been proven wrong twice (a rarity). That figure on the opposite side of the field, Leia, _was_ important, and for once since its formation, something electrifying had happened on the island. Maybe something as important as Leia.


	2. ii

Bright lights reflected from every surface in the bustling city, dazzling the crowd on a hot summer's day. Amilyn was not exempt; she sheltered her eyes from the glare of the sun as she entered her appointed building, takeaway coffee in hand. At only nineteen, she was one of the youngest people in the building, even if she wasn't on the payroll. Her college on the mainland had fast-tracked her into an astronomy and mathematics course, but it was her own hard work that got her an internship in the city's government. Reluctant to choose between her dreams of space and her desire to make her own world better, Amilyn spent two days a week learning all she could from major decision makers in city policy and the rest studying the cosmos. She had far from forgotten about her stranger, Leia, but since her side projects had become her full time ones, she had little time and energy left to devote to finding angels flung far from space, even ones that caused seizures and visions. Amilyn's ambitions were too important to risk alienating herself by talking about strangers in the night who she believed to be something supernatural.

Today Amilyn couldn't count until sundown. Aside from all of the other mathematical equations and imperative data constantly on her mind, living in a city meant light pollution, and she wasn't booked for using the university's high-tech telescopes and other equipment for that night, so her evening routine would consist of cooking herself dinner, attempting strained conversation with her housemates (on their side, anyway), and finally using that turquoise hair dye that had been sitting in her bathroom cabinet for three weeks. Dying her hair turquoise from silver had Amilyn confident that the colours wouldn't mix too badly - she didn't want to damage her hair by excessive bleaching. Despite what some people thought, she was actually sensible.

Two hours and half a frustrating debate after she signed into the building, Amilyn was already being sent on a coffee run. Some days were great - she could sign legal documents as a witness, offer input on how to regulate economic issues _and_ be taken semi-seriously. Some other days she was merely shadowing an overworked secretary unnoticed, aside from when she was asked to take the lunch order. It was a middling day for her - she got to aid (silently, but she was still there) in a debate over tourism and social regulations, but she also had to put her life on the line to deliver someone's favourite coffee that, for some unknown reason, had to come from their store of choice and not the coffee machine in the break room. Maybe she was being a little dramatic about the behaviour of drivers and their aversions to public safety, but after studying the unpublished reports from the traffic controls around the city she believed in the cause for new speed limits and harsher fines to protect others.

Leaving the towering mirror calling itself a chrome building, Amilyn made her way to the coffee shop across the street that would undoubtedly have queues outside of the door. Her path avoiding cracks in the concrete spanned the busy road followed a series of annoyed car horns and scornful looks from drivers, yet she didn't see the problem. She had enough time to cross, even if she was cutting it a little close, and she did not believe in waiting around herself for the flimsy concept of safety. A debate was waiting for her. A debate, and the queue that was in fact dominating half of the pavement of the sheltered storefront. Amilyn sighed, and joined the queue. At least she recognised the opportunity to realign herself with her environment, something she believed most people in this city was in need of.

Slowing her breathing a little, she opened her palms and turned them upwards, intending to focus on a technique she had learned on a spiritual course based on international practices. The wind tugged on her loose blouse, causing her to shiver not with the cold, but of the raw feeling of the touch. Her feet shuffled forward automatically as she sensed the need to move forward with those around her, entering the shop and intaking all of the new sounds around her. She didn't let herself disassociate from the world around her, but she felt as if there was a time lag between what actually happened and when she felt it, so when she saw that familiar flash of white a few heartbeats thudded in her ears before her conscious mind pieced the puzzle together. Leia.

Leia, angel, cause-of-seizure, whatever label Amilyn had ascribed to her over the past three years was _right next to her._ Or more accurately, walking away from her.

"Wait!" Amilyn almost tripped over herself to get to Leia. She would have reached out, but held back at the last moment as she remembered Leia's reaction last time - every precious moment of that odd interaction had been burned into Amilyn's memory. "Leia!"

The woman in question turned around, confirming Amilyn's suspicions. It was undoubtedly Leia - no one else had hair like that. No one else had a face like that either. It changed from stone to recognition in swift movements: a fluid encased in soft skin atop a regal posture. "Amilyn Holdo, I believe?"

"Yes. I- What _are_ you?" The question had been building in Amilyn for three years. While her time devoted to her obsession with the strange events surrounding Leia had declined, Amilyn's passion had increased. In the stolen moments between classes she had planned out what she would say to her if the pair ever met again, and Amilyn had concluded with certainty that Leia was not quite human. Reckless was the question, but consequences for herself were not something Amilyn ever wasted time thinking about.

"Well, what are you?" Diverting a question with a question. Amilyn would not have been surprised if Leia was skilled in politics.

"My identity was not what I was questioning. I was asking the woman who gave me nothing but questions three years ago when she turned up totally out of place and asked me for directions to place she never even went to." Amilyn's words were true - she had asked the owners of all the B and Bs on her little island, yet none of them had even taken in a customer that night, let alone one matching Leia's description, only cementing Amilyn's reputation as peculiar. This didn't lead to any hostility towards Leia, and Amilyn's tone had returned to its usual monotone after the initial surprise of seeing her again.

"I do not owe you anything. I have my own business to attend to." Leia replied hotly, a polar opposite to Amilyn's calm.

"Please don't be offended. I simply want to get to know you." Amilyn called after the retreating figure, willing the amount of people between them to shrink. "Can you take my number or something? I would love to stop now, but it looks like both of us are busy."

Tuts and sighs surrounded Amilyn as she squeezed herself out of the line and out of the shop, unable to just to let Leia leave like that. Leia turned, her dress billowing around her unchanged from their last interaction. "I can't. I have to go away soon, for something important. It wouldn't be good for me or for my people for me to have distractions. Being here is bad enough, I shouldn't have come through anyway; it was a stupid decision. I have to go."

Leia's cryptic spiel couldn't stop Amilyn. "I'm not going to pretend that I understood all of the unspoken context that you enjoy expecting me to be able to understand." She was jogging now, eager to keep apace with Leia's swift strides. "You are an enigma wrapped in a puzzle Leia, but you are also a meteor in your own right in the impact you've had on me. I can't let you go again, not when you might lead me to the moon."

"My going is my choice, and not one I will let anyone else make for me. Force knows coming here wasn't my choice to make. You have something to do with this, I am sure." Leia whirled round to face Amilyn, two stars at war with each other on a grey pavement in a grey city.

"I don't understand you, Leia." Amilyn's voice never wavered. "You just popped in and out of my life at the most inopportune moment, which are the best kind really, don't you think?" Realising Leia's unamused face, she hurried on, "Anyway, you swept in like you're walking down the red carpet but when you left it was like a hurricane had taken your place and I was the only one to see it, and you don't expect me to ask questions?" Amilyn's brow furrowed, and tears pooled in her eyes at the thought of Leia's rejection. As much as she tried, she could not tamper down her flared emotions.

Leia scoured Amilyn's quivering face, finding nothing but acute anguish. "I am sorry. I can't be close to anyone right now, especially anyone from this world. It is bad enough that you know my name." She stepped one silver heel-encased foot towards Amilyn; due to their physical proximity, Amilyn realised for the first time how small Leia actually was. Her stiff posture and Amilyn's spindly height created an amusing difference. "Maybe," Here Amilyn's heart jumped into her throat as Leia's dainty hand encased hers, "One day I can get to know you. You sound intelligent, and a woman who would I would love to share my hobbies with. But today is not that day." Staring at Leia's intense brown eyes, Amilyn offered a watery smile. She would have liked to think that Leia returned the gesture, but after a blink she was gone, leaving only the muted reflection of the midday moon like a halo behind Amilyn, the silver tips of her hair gently blowing in the wind in the direction of Leia's absence as if they were calling out to her.

In the extra thirty minutes Amilyn had to wait for someone else's coffee, all she did was occupy her mind with thoughts of the angel/princess (she had yet to decide which one she believed Leia to be) and if she really did come from the moon, or somewhere else entirely


	3. iii

In the whispering light of dawn a week after Leia's first reappearance, Amilyn Holdo was grasped from the clutches of sleep by a force much more nefarious: the sickening crawl of worry from her stomach to the tips of her extremities that closed her throat with the threat of death. Upon waking, the nausea did not dissipate as usual, but instead intensify to the point where Amilyn wondered if she was going to be physically sick. Such anxiety did not scare Amilyn,yet she did wonder if the symptoms even came from herself, because a quality of foreignness accompanied the feeling, and she has only experienced that twice before. It was the feeling, _one of the feelings,_ that Leia and her strange clothes (even stranger than Amilyn's) and out-of-place accent brought with her from wherever she appeared from. However this time something was wrong. It was not a positive or neutral feeling - with every tremble of Amilyn's hands she could sense that Leia was in great pain, as if her pain was bleeding through every particle between the two. Sweating, Amilyn found she couldn't move, yet it was more than her bed covers holding her down, it was more than the humming in the wall pipes that was causing that muffled buzzing and rising pressure in her ears, it was, it was -

 _Her eyes felt like they were being burnt out as the whole room flashed the same white as her dress to disorient her. Applause as she gave a defiant and impassioned speech against slavery to the galaxy's most well known undisclosed slavers (Leia would be proud). Leia, full of needles and "Where is the rebel base? The woman with the same hands and the same voice as Amilyn rushing to Bail Organa to be an official part of his rebellion, to get Leia back-_

The visions assaulted Amilyn's mind, mummifying her shaking body as she fought to bring her body back to earth, or so it felt. Her turquoise hair hung limply to her face, attached by the stick of the sweat framing her face. The visions of Leia screamed at her that Leia was in danger, and she couldn't do anything about. She could however, steady herself, and limp to bathroom. And throw up.

Sighing, Amilyn sunk to the floor next to the toilet; her only relief of the night the cool porcelain soothing her inflamed cheeks. Always the scientist, she had seized her trusty journal from her bedside table on the way out of her bedroom, and shakily began filling an empty page, inking in more particulars and emotions about Leia next to what she thought about the stars last night. Flicking through to the start of the journal, to the important notes that she had transferred from her previous journals and various notebooks, a copy of Amilyn's notes from her original visions about Leia resided on the inside of the front cover. Something initially overlooked but of vital importance.

Comparing the pair of visions, Amilyn concluded that her storm of a brain showed her two different women, or girls since the time between the images had appeared to affect their ages similarly, the first one being Leia, and the second being a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Amilyn herself. She didn't recognise any places or the faceless people, and the fashion was strange - the dress robes were beautiful but not entirely practical. History was not Amilyn's strong point, but throughout all her younger self's research into Leia's odd presentation she couldn't identify anywhere or any-when where people would dress in the style of the mismash of fabrics her visions showed her and nothing had changed. Of course, conclusions were never solid and data and its perceptions were always versatile, but at 5:23am, slumping into herself on her bathroom floor, Amilyn Holdo was no closer to finding her mystery woman or where she came from.

That was until her mystery woman was right in front of her. Scrambling towards the quivering mess that was Leia, Amilyn's mind went into overdrive. Accepting the fact that a human (presumably) had just appeared on her bathroom floor was easy for Amilyn, yet seeing one of the subjects of her strange dreams that set her nerves on fire only triggered a familiar warmth to shoot through her, from her fingertips directly to her heart. The last time she had felt this was immediately before her first seizure, and the last thing Amilyn wanted was to disassociate when she could be spending her precious time with Leia.

Centering her attention to solely Leia laying in the middle of her bathroom floor, Amilyn quietly asked, "Is it ok if I touch you? You look like you could get help with sitting up. The door isn't very comfortable to lean on, but it's locked so it won't give way behind you."

At the mention of the locked door, Leia whimpered, a pathetic sound Amilyn would never have imagined emanating from such a dignified woman. She was clearly in pain, but not a speck of the skin uncovered by her dress was marked. Amilyn wasn't even sure if she was conscious. "Leia. Leia, it's me, Amilyn." The woman in question stilled, her fluttering eyelashes the only movement in the ill-lit room.

"Ah-uh. A-ahh.." Leia tried to verbalise something but she was clearly in pain.

"It's ok Leia, you'll be safe here. My housemates are too conventional to be awake at this time, so it's just going to be me with you. I won't let them come near you if you don't want to be around more talking bags of flesh."

That roused a strained half-smile out of Leia. "It's, it'll be fine soon. They were done with me for a while, s-so their last injection was bacta." Amilyn nodded along despite not fully understanding Leia's explanation of her situation framed as reassurance. Leia noticed her confusion, and carried on, "It will erase most of the physical damage from their last failed attempt at extracting information from me, so they can start it all again without killing me."

"I hope you know that that was not reassuring." Leia chuckled, visibly well now that her cheek had lost the snowy touch of death and had regained colour. She rose to sit up against the door as Amilyn had suggested, facing the concerned woman with a faint smile that had Amilyn wishing that the full moon was illuminating Leia with the shining intensity Amilyn felt she deserved, instead of hiding behind a cloud as if it was never there at all. "You don't have to do that, you know."

"Do what?" Leia's voice was gaining the strength the rest of her body had reclaimed.

"Smile when you are clearly in pain. Shielding your suffering behind the diversion of your juxtaposing facial expressions, manifesting yourself steel armour around stained glass. It won't last, and you may find that everything will come crashing down around you while you are ill-equipped to deal with it." Leia's face fell, and even in the dim light, Amilyn could see the pain she was barely containing. "Is the bathroom of a stranger's not the best place to deal with it?"

A pause, and then a whisper in the silence: "I don't think of you as a stranger."

A wave crashed within Amilyn, a wave of relief and gratitude that soothed any lingering nausea so strong that she almost laughed. Leia's words made her heart roar and her guard fall. Leia continued her admission, "But I would like to get to know you better."

Settling closer to Leia, so close their crossed feet were almost touching, Amilyn took a deep breath. "Sometimes, well, it's only happened twice but, when you're around me, I get these… visions. The first time it happened, when we were sixteen, I thought it was a seizure, but it couldn't have been. Because I had one not even an hour ago, and it wasn't a seizure. In them I see… you, and someone who may be me." Amilyn omitted the confession that the thought of her actually being the unknown woman who was close to Leia and clearly of some importance in that world thrilled her. "What I saw, and… what I felt this morning surrounding you was…" Amilyn's monotone dropped tentatively. "Was revolting. You, you were being tortured, there's no other word for it, they were disorienting you and injecting you and demanding the location of the rebel base, all while I- the other woman was doing so well. She was giving a speech and then she was desperate to get to you, joining a rebel militia for you with the help of someone, someone called Bail Organa-"

"Stop!" Leia scrambled away from Amilyn like she had been stung, failing to halt her tears and shaking from panic. "That can't be true, this must be a simulation. They won't get the location of the rebel base because I don't have it! I am a member of the Imperial Senate, on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan, I am a member of the Imperial Senate…" Her cracking voice gave fell into a desperate whisper as she ritualistically repeated her last phrase, collapsing in on herself in a sad corner of Amilyn's bathroom. The shadows snuck around her face, claiming her to the darkness of her own mind.

"Leia, I'm still Amilyn. I'm sorry I said that. But it is true, I do see you and your world, and although they cause my heart rate to spike - and not in a good way - I like them. I don't believe that we are from the same place in this universe, hell, maybe we're not from the same universe at all, but I am trustworthy, if only because I don't really know what you're talking about." When Leia continued chanting, wholly ignoring Amilyn's monologue, she soldiered on, "I am real Leia. Not a simulation. Here, my hand is warm." She offered her young hand out, a criss cross of tiny scars along one edge where she got caught in barbed wire in a field she wasn't supposed to be in. "It's the same hand you've seen the other two times we've met."

Leia's dark irises slid to the side of her eye sockets to gaze at Amilyn, the only indication that she had heard her. "You had silver hair the last time we met."

It was Amilyn's turn to smile. "You've got the same buns. They're impressive. I'm a bit jealous of your skill with them, truth to be told."

Leia's gaze dropped to Amilyn's proffered hand, and reached out her own to touch it. Amilyn almost gasped at her touch - Leia's gentle brush was something Amilyn suddenly realised she needed more of. She curled her fingers around Leia's: a light grasp she would treasure forever.

"You are real."

"I am real. I'm still Amilyn."

"Holdo." Amilyn nodded encouragingly. "I haven't met another Amilyn, but I'm still glad to know that you are Holdo too." Leia pushed herself up, sitting in the same regal posture that seemed to come automatically to her. The only difference between then and a lifetime previously was that tear tracks were visible. "I'm still Leia. Leia Organa. Please hold on to that for me, because now I don't know how long even that will last. I may be all that is left of Alderaan now."

"They razed your entire country?" Amilyn whispered, daring to ask such a question to keep her angel talking.

"My entire planet." Leia gripped Amilyn's hands tighter, as if she had just became conscious that her world was a lot smaller now, and Amilyn's bathroom was half of it.

"Do you have anywhere to go? Are you going to be okay?" Amilyn leaned in closer to her unconsciously.

"I will be." Leia blinked slowly, and Amilyn liked to think it was because she didn't want to miss a moment of being with her, even if it was because she didn't want to miss a moment of safety. "I think you were right, Amilyn Holdo. I think this is a different world to my own. By all accounts, I should be on a space station called the Death Star right now. But I'm here with you." A sweet silence fell between the two.

And then Leia kissed her. Reached up to Amilyn without breaking apart their hands and placed a velvet kiss on her lips, to which Amilyn responded with wonder and excitement. It was not intense, but had a sense of calm urgency with it. When Leia pulled away, her cheeks were a little flushed with embarrassment, as if she couldn't quite believe she initiated that. "I'm sorry, I just needed to do that at least once, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to come back to you again."

"Don't apologise. And don't think about tomorrow. You must be so tired right now, with… everything." Amilyn looked softly at Leia, stroking a hand through her shimmering hair. "How comfortable are you with going to sleep next to me? I think we both need it."

Leia relaxed into Amilyn's touch. "I don't know where I'll be when I wake up."

"I hope it will be somewhere safe, like you are safe right now."

"I would appreciate sleeping. Where is your room?"

"I'll show you." The pair got to their feet slowly; a tangle of limbs after so long on a numbingly cold floor. Leia let Amilyn guide her to Amilyn's bedroom, letting Leia get comfortable before she joined her. Tired, caring smiles were exchanged between the two as they welcomed the comforting blanket of deep sleep.

Five hours and forty-six minutes after sunrise, Amilyn Holdo overslept for the first time. She was lacking the warmth of a certain angel, but the peace that the two brought each other remained.


	4. iv

Barely a day could go by without Leia occupying Amilyn's thoughts. The woman entranced her even if Amilyn had no realistic certainty of seeing her again, let alone regularly, but the feeling of Leia didn't leave her alone regardless. After retrieving her journal from her bathroom (it had mercifully been left alone by her three housemates), she couldn't keep from adding to it. Speculation mostly, since she still didn't understand much about Leia came from, although she was much more certain that it wasn't Earth. That thought only increase the thrill she got from her astronomy work, since every time she looked through a telescope she wondered if she was looking at Leia, too.

The day after the fateful morning of Leia appearing in Amilyn's bathroom, Amilyn found herself missing the peace and clarity brought with her. Life ceased its suspension, and went on as normal, as if those few precious hours she got with Leia never mattered. Amilyn still went to her classes, interacting with her classmates as she always did - with genuine interest but stunted awkwardness. To be fair, she was in a physics-based course. Everyone was more than a little awkward.

Or so Amilyn thought. She was six months in her educational year, and suddenly found herself on the middle of people who were laughing about a party she hadn't been to, or an inside joke she wasn't privy to. This wasn't unusual for her, but the tremor in her hands when she had to ask them a question was. She hoped Leia was faring better.

* * *

"Into the garbage chute, flyboy!" Leia commanded as she dodged blaster fire and threw herself down said garbage chute. The situation wasn't exactly how she expected her rescue/escape to go, but she was grateful nonetheless. Once whatever higher power had transported her to Amilyn, she thought she was saying her goodbyes - no one escaped from the Death Star. No one apart from her, the short non-stormtrooper Luke Skywalker, and the handsome but sarcastic pilot Han Solo, both of whom strangers she was elated to see (that was a description that sounded familiar); the fact that random strangers who were only rescuing her out of coincidence had such an effect on her made her admit to herself how petrified she really was. In the safety of Amilyn's presence the previous night she could reject most thoughts of her interrogation, but now she was actively fighting for her life again the adrenaline brought shakes to her legs that mirrored those when she was resisting Darth Vader's excruciating mental Force Grip.

Summoning strength from the squeeze of Han's hand when the walls of the garbage masher threatened to finish Grand Moff Tarkin's execution order, Leia propelled herself upwards over the rising tide of rubbish. She was determined to stay alive - she had not resisted Darth Vader's torture tactics to die in the underbelly of a space station. Leia's thoughts flashed to her parents, hoping that they were proud of their rebellious princess, and then to Amilyn, hoping that she was still serenely sleeping. The metal walls rumbled closer to her, more and more liquid ooze clung to her and she truly thought that death was seconds away until -

"Wooo! Threepio did it!" Luke cheered, his holler bouncing around the small chamber. The masher had stopped! Leia and her two new allies weren't going to be subjected to the most putrid death Leia could think of (or had previously considered). A smile of relief spreading across her face, she joined in cheering with the others, her enthusiasm genuine. Now all she had to do was locate Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han's ship, and get the hell away from the infernal Death Star. She considered that to simple in comparison to the rest of the events of the last week.

Unfortunately, life was never simple for Leia Organa.

* * *

Another bright summer's day greeted Amilyn as she left her flat for her next astronomy lecture. She had planned to leave a little earlier to have a leisurely walk through her favourite park in the city - one with a series of beautiful ponds where wildlife flocked to - but she found herself doing everything possible to avoid leaving. As she made her way to the campus, vividly aware of everyone around her, she tried to tamper down the sense that something was amiss. The feeling clawed her brain yet she could not identify its root - she had not forgotten any important dates, work, or anything else she had to do. Nor could she choose between the thoughts of it being related to Leia - if the knot in her stomach was due to her link with Leia, then Leia was in trouble, an experience Amilyn never wanted either of them to have repeated. However if Amilyn's uneasiness wasn't due to Leia, then something was seriously wrong with _her,_ and that was something Amilyn never wanted to deal with.

Amilyn attended her lecture, with as much passion as always, even if she had left some of her enthusiasm at home. Her feet took her to the library to work on papers, as they always did, but after only thirty minutes of hard work, her focus started slipping away she felt her eyes glazing over. Startled, she stumbled to the toilets, sweeping up her bag on the way, hoping that her healing crystals would like the animated air of the toilets compared to the stuffy silence of the library. If they failed to activate, she could always find someone with painkillers, not that she ever enjoyed using them. The world blurred around her as she staggered into a cubicle, the lock on the door a grey swirl she barely registered she was even touching. A thunder in her ears roared, the storm in her head rose and rose, enveloping her head until she threw it back and -

 _Leia, elated - she was placing medals around important men's necks - they had destroyed the Death Star. A woman, physically uniform in every way apart from her daring orange hair, proving herself more to the Rebellion than Leia's best friend. The start of another battle plan that Leia's heartache did not stop for, but Leia did not stop for heartache. An argument witnessed between Leia and a shadow that the orange-haired woman recognised as latent sexual tension neither party wanted to acknowledge -_

The images ceased as abruptly as they came, leaving Amilyn alone in the cubicle with her sobs. With her mind empty, all she could feel was the bewilderment of her body - her stomach didn't know what emotion she was feeling, her hands couldn't feel whether she was in her own body, and her breaths were coming hard and fast as if she had just ran a marathon, not collapse on a toilet seat. It had only been a matter of weeks since her last vision, instead of years, yet they still weren't something she understood. Taking a deep breath, she tried to put the pieces together in her mind - she was still seeing Leia and a possible version of herself, in Leia's home universe - she couldn't have come from Amilyn's own, she reasoned, because there weren't enough resources on all of Earth to blow up an entire planet, and Leia was most likely human, so the chances of Leia and human life evolving even once was extremely low, let alone it happening twice in one universe. Amilyn had always been partial to the multiverse theory anyway.

The chuckle that slipped from her lips when she thought about presenting her evidence for a real alternate universe grounded her; the sound of her own voice cutting through the ringing in her ears like a lifeboat in the middle of an ocean. She wiped her cheeks to prepare herself before stepping out into the communal area.

Amilyn was still alone in the toilets, grateful for the opportunity to reapply her makeup in peace. Her sobs had destroyed her natural eye makeup, leaving behind dull smudges on her youthful face. Usually she would have just removed it completely, but in that moment she decided that nothing would uplift her like glitter and a few stars. Pulling away from the mirror, satisfied with her finishing touches, Amilyn faltered at the thought of leaving the safety of the bathroom. She had just staggered out of the library, with everyone watching, and having to go back to facing them was suddenly something that made her breath catch. Shaking herself (literally), she reminded herself that out of any social group in the world, university students were probably the least likely to care too much about her weird habits, and she had never cared about what people thought about her anyway; she shouldn't start now. With that reassurance in mind, only one thing stopped her from reaching for the door handle:

"Amilyn? Amilyn are you okay?" an anxious voice asked her. A voice that had come from a previously empty room, in front of which Amilyn was standing in front of the only entrance to. "I heard that you were in pain."

"Leia?" Amilyn turned, her curly turquoise hair spilling over her back. There at the opposite end of the sinks, stood Leia. The first thing Amilyn noticed about her was that she had finally changed her hair. Still a braid as always, but this one sat over her head like a headband with the rest of her hair in a practical bun behind her head. It suited her. "You've changed your hair."

Leia rushed up to her, utilitarian trousers and jacket that had replaced her floor-length dress making the two-metre journey easy. "I thought you were in danger."

Perplexed, Amilyn guided her to a sink, giving the pair something to lean on. "I… don't know what you mean. I came here because I got a little dizzy, I saw.. us again. Well, you. It made me panic a little, but I'm fine. I'm okay." She even smiled to try to prove it, but even she didn't believe it. After the harrowing experience, Amilyn's nerves felt limp, not even responding to Leia's touch with the usual bright jolts.

"But I heard you! In my head, you were there…" It was Leia's turn to be confused. "I was doing… some work, trying to organise some things in my rare moment of conscious spare time. Don't feel bad about that, either," Leia interrupted when she saw the look on Amilyn's face, "I just had this intense feeling that something was wrong, which hasn't been uncommon for me, since… s,s-" She broke off for a moment, not wanting or not able to go on.

"Since the last time we met." Amilyn murmured, immediately understanding.

"Yes, but this time I knew it wasn't just a shadow in a corner. I don't understand it myself, but I heard you, as clear as day, crying. And then I blinked and I was here."

Amilyn grasped Leia's hands, pulling Leia down with her to the floor. It may not have been the most hygenic of seating areas, but Amilyn wanted to make the most of the time she had with Leia physically there. Her warmth was a blanket that hushed Amilyn's mind for a minute. "I'm not always honest with myself, even if I'm always honest with other people. And I've not been very honest with myself lately."

"I could say the same." Leia whispered it as if she had just realised it herself.

"I don't know if the vision triggered the attack, or if it was just a coincidence - not that I normally believe in them - but I've been… struggling recently."

"With what?" Leia verbally prodded her friend.

Amilyn shrugged. "I don't know. But it will be fine, I'm sure." Amilyn felt her skin grow several inches thicker at Leia's question, not wanting to acknowledge any more than she had done already that day. Something unidentifiable had told her that she should keep any more to herself, so she listened. For the first time in a decade, Amilyn listened to something that would only cause her more pain, and she did as it told her to.

* * *

Leia had never been more relieved to be sitting on a questionable floor in a place she did not recognise. Amilyn was safe, not coming to unimaginable harm like she had feared (like she had been through herself, but Leia did not want to think about that), and even better, Leia was sitting with her, hand in hand. In the Rebellion, Leia did not have many friends that were much more than close allies, or friendships that were not related to the Rebellion. The closest thing she had to that was Luke and Han, although Luke was the Rebellion's new star and Han was… Han. Amilyn was something different, had only been a constant in her tumultuous life, and Leia didn't want to think any more daring thoughts in her - loss was never far behind Leia Organa.

"I don't doubt that you will be fine for a second, even if I don't quite believe that you are fine right now. But we don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. I'm happy just to be here."

"I thought you were some hot-shot, some bright star everyone else needed to guide them." Amilyn tugged at Leia's fingers playfully. "Your own world's Polaris."

Smiling, Leia responded, "Sometimes I think you're not wrong, but I wouldn't reach as far as you do. I am a leader, and some people need that more than others, but the Rebellion can manage without me well enough. Most of the time."

Never taking her intrigued blue eyes away from Leia's, Amilyn nudged Leia's shoulder with her own, motioning for more. "What's this Rebellion all about then? I promise I'll kick the ass of any intergalactic enemy spies who try to get any information out of me."

Leia hadn't thought of anything but immediately trusting Amilyn with stories and information about the Rebellion - apart from Amilyn proving herself to be trustworthy and caring before, the stories of the Rebellion were also the stories of Leia's life for the past four years, and friends shared their lives together, even if they were stuck an unmeasurable distance apart. "You'd kick their ass by weirding them out." Leia teased.

"Thank you."

Leia laughed even harder. "I thought you were so odd when we first met, you and this strange world of yours. And I don't think that much has changed, although I am now more open to odd things."

"It's a blessing and a curse." Amilyn joined in, her laugh a musical Leia never wanted to end.

"A little like my Rebellion then. Well, it's not mine as it is the galaxy's - we're the democratic ones - and I didn't have a hand in starting it, but I have certainly given things up for it." Refusing to think too deeply about her words, Leia ploughed on, "I used to have a career in galaxy politics; I wasn't too high up in the Senate, but I was on my way there. I guess I still do have a career in politics, although it's a lot less official now."

"The Rebellion?" Amilyn enquired.

"Yes. There's us and the Empire. The Emperor had control of almost all of the systems, but more and more have been slipping through his fingers since we've been gaining victories, releasing slaves no matter their species."

"It sounds fantastical." Amilyn admitted. "So you are some hot-shot star with a gun, shooting your way out of situations you can't talk your way out of."

"That is… not inaccurate. We do have more strategy than that sometimes, though. And what's a gun?"

"It's a metal weapon some people use to shoot little metal bullets out of to hurt others. It's the force of the bullet and its impact that breaks bones and rips flesh apart."

"We have something similar, but they're called blasters and they shoot lasers. We charge the blasters; they don't run out of ammunition. They aren't uncommon either; you don't sound very fond about your guns."

"They are mostly instruments of war. Some countries have laws against them in everyday life, some don't, arguing that they are instruments of protection."

"That makes sense, we use our blasters for the protection of the people, and ourselves," Leia begun, enjoying the debate Amilyn had unknowingly placed in front of her. "Although we only have them because the Empire had them, and much worse. It's all up to the person using it - they can claim that they're on the side of the good, but goodness is about actions more than intentions - they could have the most valiant thoughts in the galaxy but should they kill an innocent, they wouldn't be valiant, or good."

Leia's and Amilyn's eyes locked like their hands. "That's a good point." Amilyn relented. "Then the argument becomes about trust - who should we trust, and who should we not?"

That was a question Leia found was all too familiar. Her gaze dropped, her whole body feeling tired all of a sudden. "Now that is a question that just makes me exhausted."

"Fair enough. We always pour oil into the machine, but only stop once in a while to refill the bottle."

A strange feeling filled Leia's arms, tickling as if something were incredibly out of place but she couldn't work out what it was. "I think I'm leaving again," She gasped, realising what was happening. The feeling of being pulled out of one existence and into another was a unique one.

"Can you stop it? Control it?" Amilyn's sleepy demeanour passed in an instant.

Shaking her head, Leia's vision began to whiten. She could no longer feel Amilyn's hand in hers; not even Amilyn's warmth remained. "Goodbye Amilyn. I hope I come back soon, I always love talking to you."

And Leia was back in her cramped quarters, as if she had woken up from a vivid dream that brought the kind of comfort that was rare in consciousness.

* * *

In less than a second, Leia was gone, blinked out of existence before Amilyn's very eyes. The loss Amilyn's hands felt were profound; Leia's warmth was removed from them instantly. Her warmth remained in Amilyn's heart, however, as she took a few precious seconds to commit to memory the feeling of their bubble the pair produced when they were together. When she was with Leia, Amilyn believed that she could both overthrow all the injustice in the world and have a good time while doing it, so long as Leia was by her side. Rising to her full height, Amilyn strode out of the bathroom and back towards an empty seat in the library, only half thinking about the work time she had missed out on.


	5. v

In the months following her visit to Amilyn, Leia cursed her inability to visit her at will, feeling a greater longing to be sat by her friend, a bottle of good Coruscanti wine between the pair, spending hours on uninterrupted conversation after another arduous day. Amilyn was intelligent - she had held her own when debating with Leia and Leia had spied a physics textbook amongst the curiosities and papers in her bag - she would have made a vital addition to the Rebellion. Maybe in another life, Leia mused, despite not fully believing in her words. Amilyn probably would have.

A deep laugh barrelled down the corridor, jolting Leia from her thoughts. She had decided years ago that personal relationships had to stay second to the Rebellion, no matter how often she wanted to run to Amilyn after thoughts of the Death Star or when the Rebellion took heavy losses. She had to keep the Rebellion running, and give people cause and safety to laugh.

"Han! She's not going to like it-"

"Hey, Princess!" The scoundrel in question appeared through the door, the drawl at the end of his words overt. "You decided to let me teach you to play Sabaac yet? You haven't lived until you've played Corellian Spike." Luke came running up behind him, panting. He threw an apologetic glance in Leia's direction.

"Han," Leia begun smoothly, well-versed in their game of words, "You know that I do not approve of gambling for fun."

Han smirked, the expression well-suited on his angular face. "When are you gonna start living a little Princess?"

Leia stilled, wondering the same herself. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears as she recalled a memory of her playing the usual variant of Sabaac in act of rebellion against Alderaan's pacifist ideals when she was fourteen, young and untouched by the Empire. She was finding that image of her hard to let go - how she could reconcile her younger self being so fiesty and cutting with her current self who was already so tired of the atrocities and violence the Empire committed was a collision she was struggling to manage, along with the constant reminders of her homeworld and the unconventional smuggler barging into both her office and her mind unannounced. "When are you going to do something sensible for a change? Like not endangering your life by annoying me every hour of the day?" Rejection and (mostly) friendly antagonism were a safe bet for Leia: her wit always ensuring that she had something to retort back, even if sometimes getting closer to him ignited a fire brighter than rejecting him did.

"I'm wounded, Princess. Annoying? How can you find someone as handsome as me _annoying?"_

That extracted a snort from Luke, who had mostly just leaned on the doorframe, observing the pair silently. Most of the time, Leia was grateful for Luke in her life - aside from being the Rebellion's favourite hero, he was a genuine, funny person who cared about her. Apart from when Han indulged in his favourite pastime of annoying her, apparently.

"I can find someone as _arrogant_ as you annoying easily, _Captain._ Don't you have work to do?"

"That's why I'm here."

Leia narrowed her eyes at him, doubtful of his words and even more skeptical of his intentions. She had yet to discern whether or not he wanted to get her into bed, in general, and if he did, was it because he wanted to bed a princess or because he wanted _her?_ Not that she liked to ruminate on that thought too often - his good looks and enticing charm did not work on her, she told herself. Any blood boiled was due to anger.

"Then why did you ask about Sabaac?" Her tone was sharpening, broadcasting a warning.

"Well I-"

"You know what? I don't want to know." She interrupted, holding one palm up. "Just tell me what you need to."

His face darkened slightly at the interruption, annoyed at having being stopped mid sentence. "Dodonna wants you in Alliance High Command. He wouldn't tell me much more apart from that it was important," His features fell in the pause, and his tone lost its bite in his next sentence: "He said something about the past year and the Alderaan diaspora."

Leia's breathing slowed so such an extent she feared it would stop completely. She knew what she was supposed to do when her thoughts strayed to the destruction of her home: various meditation techniques and breathing exercises, yet they far from always worked. Undoubtedly, she had made progress since the year previously when the massacre haunted her every time she closed her eyes, but at the end of the day, when her hands would not stop shaking and her brain threatened to electrify her, nothing but the warmth of the words of others would soothe her. It was mostly Amilyn's monotonous voice and weird words that grounded her, and when it wasn't unbearable her mother and father made an appearance, a memory called up from years previously. Even Luke helped sometimes - Leia could swear she could feel his presence in the back of her mind, a safety net ready to catch her in her fall to a dreamless sleep. She never thought Han to be capable of the same, his head always on money or his own interests, but the inexplicably tender tone he weaved into the way he said 'Alderaan' lodged a seed of doubt into her mind. Realising she had spent a beat too long in her own mind, Leia replied, "Thank you for telling me. I will be on my way in a moment." The training of etiquette that had been instilled in her since her adoption into the royal house Organa allowed her to appear as unwavering as ever, even though she was still placing the building blocks of herself back together.

Clearly unsettled, both Luke and Han stayed silent, a rarity for Han. He shrugged his shoulders, probably trying to bolster some swagger back after being caught off-guard, and said, "Well I'll leave you to that then Princess." He turned, grabbing Luke by the wrist. "Come on kid." The pair hurried out of the room, leaving Leia alone to gather her thoughts. With perfectly controlled coordination, she set down the datapad she was working on situated in the exact centre of the white desk. She was managing, she told herself until it could come true; her shallow breathing evening out just as her therapist told her. There was no cause to avoid this meeting, Leia reasoned with herself: it was finally time to stop putting off any formal meetings about Alderaan. It was always going to be undeniably tied to the Rebellion, and the Rebellion was her work - Leia Organa did not shrink from her duty. Rising from her office chair, she jutted her chin upwards; she was a leader, and she was going to look like one.

Even the best laid plans go awry, however, and within milliseconds Leia was experiencing a chill that could not have originated from the stagnant room; Leia felt a conviction fill her mind that someone she cared about needed her, yet this feeling never manifested in relation to any usual thing - Amilyn must have been involved. A familiar tingle pooled in her stomach and shot up through her throat, and while she reached for the door her hand didn't reach it.

* * *

Drunk. It was unmistakable. Amilyn Holdo was drunk. She swayed her way through the labyrinth of the unfamiliar house, vaguely aware that she may not get to the toilet in time to throw up in it. At some point, she figured, she would maybe bring herself to care about that, but she had not cared about something to an acceptable extent since she arrived at her university. After many months of appearing to be too weird or too overbearing for her peers, she had finally snagged an invitation from her lab partner, who was one of the few who offered her a genuine smile when they worked together. Yet however confident Amilyn projected herself to be, she wasn't at home unless she was surrounded by constellations or a team of those dedicated to doing good for the public. Despite what the people who believed her to be too whimsical to be anything but a nuisance (at best) in governance or in a serious research party, she knew she could do something important. Maybe that thought left her more often that it did when she was younger, but she was still determined to value her individuality.

Unfortunately, that individuality also included drinking too much at the type of party one only experienced in their early twenties. And vomiting into a toilet bowl while her sluggish, twenty-year-old mind was still trying to piece together some inspiring metaphor to cease the worry that seemed to permanently accompany thoughts about well, anything these days, left her with both a metaphorical and a literal bitter taste in her mouth.

"God Amilyn, what are you doing?" She chastised herself without any vigor behind her words. Sliding down the wall of the bathroom, she tucked her legs up into herself and sighed. Completely inebriated and exhausted with both the day and the general stresses of her life, she felt her heart sink. This was not how her life was supposed to go. With the haze of alcohol slowing her, she didn't realise the electricity in her fingertips until it was too late - the white walls of the foreign bathroom were pulled out of her vision at lightspeed.

 _The princess laughing, having fun. Amilyn dressed like the fire she was shooting at enemy troops, barking commands to her squadron. The shakes of traumatised hands being tamed one step at a time; Leia learning to smile in the face of personal adversity again. The pair meeting at the back of a room, smirking in the shadows that hid how closely they were really standing next to each other, hands meeting -_

And Amilyn was back in the real word, her hands stuck to the frozen tile floor. With inhibitions completely lowered, the rawness of the final image and the unfairness of how it got interrupted, cruelly taken away from her, goring her heart. She would have sobbed, but the nausea returned with a rush, along with the now-familiar burn of vomit. Amilyn was drunk and crying and slumped over a toilet in a house she didn't recognise and she hated it.

"Amilyn? Amilyn are you alright in there?" In her fractured state, Amilyn thought for a split second that that was Leia's voice through her door. "Do you need anything?" It was Jess, the lab partner/hopeful friend who had invited Amilyn around in the first place.

"I'm fine," Amilyn croaked. "I'll be out in a minute." She wasn't planning on moving any time soon, but she did suppose she was taking up one of the two toilets in the house.

"Okay, just let me know if you need anything!" The woman on the other side of the door was clearly too perky to have been drinking, Amilyn mused, wishing she were in a similar state.

Rising on unsteady legs, Amilyn washed her mouth and hands, flushed the chain, and unlocked the door to try to get downstairs without falling over. Jess flashed her a smile on the way down, which Amilyn gratefully returned before haltingly tottering out into the back garden. She found a soft patch of grass and sat down; with her eyes closed she embraced the cool night air whipping around her face, thinking about nothing but how it struck her skin.

"Amilyn?" That was a voice that wasn't Jess', a voice that she barely heard outside of dreams and odd bathroom encounters. "Amilyn." The second call of her name was less questioning and more of a grateful and appreciative statement of fact: Amilyn was sitting down in the grass, and Leia (for that was undoubtedly Leia) was not wholly expecting to see her but happy about it nonetheless.

"Hey Leia." Amilyn murmured: a quiet but distinct coat that enveloped her words. "What are you up to?"

"Oh you know," She tucked the longer tails of her jacket underneath herself she sat down beside Amilyn, "The usual. Administration work, dealing with annoying lackeys, trans-universal travel. What I always do."

A smile pulled Amilyn's lips up with her eyelids, but she didn't believe that her heart was reflected in it. "'Administration work?' That's a downgrade from running an inter-galactic rebellion isn't it?"

"All part of the job unfortunately." A pause, where Amilyn couldn't decide if Leia was wondering what to say next or wondering what she was doing there, "What about you? You some hot-shot engineer directing people to space yet?"

Amilyn looked sideways at her friend, her jaw sharp in its downwards indication towards Leia. She studied Leia for a few drawn-out seconds: she genuinely looked content, so much so that Amilyn could have sworn that her face beamed light and vitaliy rivalling that of the moon. Despite Leia's troubles, she had taken them in her stride and used them to rebuild herself out of steel, leading Amilyn to wish for something someone else had; Amilyn could count the amount of times that she had had that thought on one hand.

"How did you know I want to go to space?" She asked. ' _My life is rushing away from me as if the universe is tearing it up.'_ was something she wanted to say, but didn't, deciding that space was a more comfortable topic than the terrifying candour she couldn't manage.

Leia frowned. "I'm not sure. I did see an astronomy and physics textbook in your bag one day though. And you seem like the type of person that doesn't quite fit in with this earth."

"Thanks, I think."

"That definitely wasn't an insult." Amilyn smiled, ducking her head down for a second at Leia's words. Leia gazed out over the back fence of the garden, apparently immensely interested in the wood panelling, yet Amilyn knew better. The cogs of Leia's brain were still grinding over something she had been puzzling about for some time. "He's not a lackey." Her soft words danced in Amilyn's ears like the wind.

" _He?_ Now this is new." Amilyn wasn't still inebriated enough to mistake the skipped beat of her heart for excitement over her friend's budding feelings for someone else.

It was Leia's turn to look down. "He's been around for a while. A year now." Her gaze returned from her intertwined hands to the oak wood panelling.

"Is that how long you've loved him?" Amilyn's words were direct but not harsh.

The same could not be said for Leia's reaction. She thrust her head up sharply, her brown eyes as intense as the sun. "I don't love him!"

Amilyn raised her eyebrows slightly. "Okay then, how long have you _fancied_ him?"

Leia laughed, nervousness colouring her tone. "' _Fancy?'_ What are we, twelve?"

"Am I wrong?"

Sighing, Leia's shoulders fell as she picked at the skin around her perfect nails. "It's… complicated. Every time I'm around him he infuriates me."

"Every time? Are you sure that's _him_ that's angering you, or the way he makes you feel?" Leia froze at the confrontation of her feelings. When the wind whistled for too long, Amilyn continued, "Are you okay Leia? Really okay? Work and men aside?" Amilyn knew that Leia couldn't have been vulnerable with many people the way she was vulnerable with her - she never failed to notice the fire in Leia's eyes when she talked about her Rebellion. No one as passionate as her wanted anything to get in the way of her work, which meant compartmentalisation and little time to herself.

"Yes." And her smile was genuine. "Thank you Amilyn." Leia patted her hand, and Amilyn tried not to think about the suspension of her heart and the memory of the last time their hands were touching. "What about you? I'm here, for you."

"I'm fine." Amilyn lied, another bad habit she couldn't help but pick up. "You're free to go back to your throne atop your spatial tower. I'm not any worse than a little drunk still."

Leia laughed, the sound coming easily when she was around Amilyn. "'Spatial tower?'"

Amilyn tried to join in, "Yes, that's where I imagine you sit and run your subjects from. Of course you're not afraid to get your hands dirty from time to time, but mostly everyone else runs around for you." The thoughts of 'How could they not?' stayed within Amilyn's lips.

"Not quite. Even if I wanted to go back to my spatial tower at just the thought, I don't think I'm able to."

"So you just have to wait around until the universe decides it wants to pick you up and put you back on your throne again?"

"I wouldn't call spending time with my friend 'waiting around'."

Amilyn didn't know if she wanted to light fireworks or burn her house down at Leia considering her her friend. While she valued it highly - Leia all but refused to speak to her a couple of years ago - it wasn't the direction her mind leapt at when she thought about her relationship with Leia.

"We should learn to schedule appointments with each other. I'll shop around and find a phone that works in between universes." Leia chuckled at that. "I mean in. I'll learn to control those visions - I had another one by the way, that woman who I saw, she is me; I am her. And you're a princess." Amilyn's drunkenness became apparent again as she slurred her way through the befuddling thought. "Anyway, I'll do that, and you can practice your space hopping. It will be fun."

Leia tucked her knees into her chest, her hands resting over them as the wind tugged at loose strands of her hair. Amilyn couldn't help but notice them waving like a flag indicating home. "Okay. I would like to see you more often. My life's not all about my work."

"You're literally wearing its symbol around your neck." Amilyn dipped her head towards Leia's.

"I- How did you know?" Leia reached into her top, removing a metal pendant in the shape of an upside-down crescent moon with a third spike protruding from the middle of it and splitting into a further three short branches at the end of it. It hung around her neck by a black synthetic rope.

"I don't - I don't know." Even Amilyn had surprised herself. "I just _knew_ , you know?" She stressed the 'knew', weaving it with such conviction no one could question it. "Like my visions, there are some things about you that I cannot refute. They are facts that I am supposed to know."

Leia turned the pendant over repeatedly, considering Amilyn's words. "I suppose that's not the strangest things about our friendship." Amilyn wondered if Leia was a sadist; every time she said 'friendship' was slap in the face for Amilyn. "And this is important to me." Leia's voice dropped before rising again, bold. "It is one of the few of my father's possessions remaining. Mon Mothma, she's a founder of the Rebellion, gave it to me. She waited until I was a known enemy of the Empire, since it was risky for me to go walking around in public with this on, but she thought that my father would have wanted me to have it."

Amilyn watched Leia and her pendant with reverence; the value of the pendant was clear to her. "Here," She raised her wrist, displaying the multitude of bracelets hanging from it. "This one was the first bracelet I made for myself," She slid the smallest of them off, its rough metal reflecting only starlight. "It's got the constellations that can be seen from my favourite spot in my hometown etched into it."

Leia took the bracelet, examining the indents in the cheap metal. Sure enough, she could make out the tiny dots and the thin lines connecting them together the bracelet bared. "It's beautiful."

Amilyn smiled gratefully. "It's not. It was made in the hands of an unskilled fifteen year old with little access to decent metal or professional tools. But it's nice of you to say so." Silence settled between the pair.

"Take it." Amilyn started. Before Leia could interrupt with the questions shining in her eyes, "No really. I want to see if it will make it to your world."

"Thank you." Leia was clearly touched despite Amilyn's attempt to brush it off. Amilyn was appreciative of Leia's reaction; Amilyn's lack of stability surrounding her feelings both towards Leia and in general resulted in a tendency to take life less seriously. Of course she was still taking her work seriously - her internship-turned-job in the city council was achieved because she truly believed in working for the light of the people, yet she hadn't been applying the same sentiment to her personal life for a while.

"Think of it as a good-luck charm. The place I modelled that on also happens to be the place we first met." Seeing the playful look of Leia's face, Amilyn continued, "Don't get cocky. I made it before we met."

Leia laughed, but the musical chimes trailed off quickly. "Listen, take this too." She ripped the pendant over her head and threw it in Amilyn's lap. "I feel the pull of my own world again, but I'm going to try to stop it, just for a moment. I want to be able to come and go as I please."

Excited, Leia crossed her legs and inhaled deeply, as if she were meditating. Amilyn simply watched on in anticipation. After a tense thirty seconds, Leia opened her eyes. "Did it work?"

"Well nothing's happened. You're still here."

"Yes!" Leia clenched her fists as if physically trying to contain something. "Usually I don't really think about it when I disappear, it just happens. But this time I haven't thought about home, I concentrated on you. It feels like there's pressure building somewhere in and around my body, but aside from that, there's nothing different!" Her enthusiasm was infectious; Amilyn couldn't help but grin madly along with her. If only Leia could stay forever, she thought. "I'm going to let go, going to think about home and going back. But Amilyn, before I go - have a good night. Do all the partying that my people are not free to do. I'll come back, I promise, but live the amazing life I know you have in the meantime."

Leia's words got lost in Amilyn's brain as her enthusiasm inebriated Amilyn more than alcohol ever did. Realising that Leia was earnestly waiting for an answer before leaving, Amilyn nodded. "I promise." She said, but only the moonlight heard her words as Leia was zipped out of her existence.

It was as if Leia took all the joy from the previous hour with her. The wind chill was suddenly freezing Amilyn instead of sobering her up; the cold of the night was killing the grass Amilyn's soul was leaking sadness on. She wished she had her trusty journal with her that had once always been by her side so something else could hold her thoughts for the night. Scared she was going to spend the night in misery, Amilyn tucked Leia's pendant around her neck and beneath her clothes; smiling at Jess as she passed her and the other smokers outside the back door, Amilyn ambled inside: a moth seeking light and warmth. She ambled her way home too, since she lost the party spirit after her fifth shot of something unidentifiable. Sleep came to her easily.

Jess came to her easily too. A week after the party, Amilyn slept with her, the tall woman with glossy black locks a suitable distraction from brunette braids and petite princesses.


	6. vi

After Amilyn's first college party, she got invited to many more, even past graduation. She didn't turn up to all of them; she chose either working through the night assisting in her old astronomy department (not necessarily unusual, considering the nature of the study) or dancing her evenings away in a crowd of drunk or high (or both) people having convinced herself that that was the solution to her problems. Having fun was the opposite to feeling stressed about everything, she told herself, and the root of her non-Leia related problems must have been a lack of downtime, since she couldn't find anything else. It was lucky then, she thought, that the city's government was on break for a fortnight for the summer, and all her other work was fun. The only stress she got from her passions were being stuck in a debate with those who didn't understand her or her intentions. Unfortunately for Amilyn, she had yet to tell herself that maybe she didn't know herself as well as she thought she did, and there really was a root to most of her problems that lay malignantly unidentified.

 _Thump-thump-thump-._ An unidentifiable song pulsed through the speakers in the room-turned dance floor, filling Amilyn with energy. Everybody around her seemed to be singing along with the lyrics etched into their lips while she just danced along beside them, genuinely enjoying herself but not quite being on the same plane as everyone else. It wasn't a problem for her - she knew she still had someone hooked - the young man with floppy hair glistening with the sweat of the room was undoubtedly entranced by her movements. From some corner of her weird expansive brain something recalled that he was last week's girlfriend's brother, not that Amilyn cared. She knew everyone was here for a good time, and that was what she knew she was going to get.

* * *

Three and a half hours later, Amilyn faced herself in the harsh light of his bathroom mirror, her candy red hair glistening with sweat from more than just the room. Satisfaction rolled over her skin, replacing the temporary breathless high, as she used a spare toothbrush to wash her mouth out of the night. Not that she was intending to stay the night, she never did, but it mean that she could snag a free toothbrush, and Amilyn was nothing if not resourceful. Mouth and mind refreshed, she slung her bag over her shoulder and left the bathroom, passing last-week's-girlfriend's-brother on her way down the stairs.

"I'll see you around then?" He smirked, clearly expecting a repeat of the night. Amilyn fought not to roll her eyes, instead giving a sideways look she favoured in her political career.

"I doubt it." She continued on her way to the front door.

"I thought we had a good time."

"We did," Amilyn called to him as she fiddled with the key in the lock, "But that's all it was. Listen, at least your bedroom is nice!" She slammed the door shut after her, striding down the path to her taxi, her silver-heeled boots striking a staccato rhythm in her wake.

Settling in the taxi, she considered her journal. Certainly the previous three hours hardly demanded enough merit to be recorded on pen and paper, but she meant what she said about his bedroom. The midnight blue walls sparked her creative mind - she was still in rented accomodation, and she had a feeling her new landlord would kill her if she started redecorating half of their flat, but she could always use new sheets. The idea of bedsheets that mirrored the night skies with various constellations sewn into them lit up her mind; perhaps she could expand - ask Leia for astrology charts from her galaxy and incorporate the two together or even use the rebel symbol that Amilyn kept on her chest, close to her heart -

' _Stop.'_ She asserted to herself, refusing to let her train of thought travel further. Sleeping so close a reminder of Leia as well as wearing a reminder of her most days would set off a nuclear chain reaction: the beginning of the end of another sun. If she was going to handle her unrequited feelings ( _continue to handle_ she told herself, despite the stab of pain in her chest when she considered the lack of reciprocation), she had to act like nothing was wrong while still being honest with herself. So far, she had been successful - in the few times Leia had visited over the past twenty months (of course Amilyn was counting), Amilyn had been the perfect friend, venting with Leia over the states of their respective worlds, debating political theory, despairing over Han (Leia's 'lackey', who was really something more) with her, and soothing her when she needed it. They really were good friends, and the last thing Amilyn wanted was to ruin that. Few people ever got more than one chance in life, and even fewer got to create a solid friendship with another from a different universe, so Amilyn wasn't risk that, despite the fact that she would risk almost everything else.

The repeated pattern of the steady glow from the passing streetlamps outside the taxi window almost lulled Amilyn to sleep. Any party atmosphere remaining trickled out of the taxi, leaving her sleepy and grateful for the ride; her erratic work habits always caught up to her at strange times: in between seconds that didn't seem real or on solitary commutes with little ways to track the time. Usually those commutes of Amilyn's would consist entirely of her walking, but she knew better to walk around alone in the early hours of the morning, and her government job's overtime allowed her a few more luxuries than the rest of her peers. It wasn't long before the consistent rumbling of the vehicle allowed her consciousness to slip away.

 _Alliance High Command stood as commanding statues around a holo-table debating General Dodonna's review: 'Hoth should be our next destination' Leia stated. Amilyn, then with aqua hair and a Captain in her own right, packing bantha furs for the ice planet Leia promised a cup of her favourite Gatalantan tea for. Han and Leia orbiting each other at dangerous speeds, yet to meet despite their strong forces. Amilyn and Leia sticking close together on the off chance they saw each other in the mess hall: their time together a blessed few minutes' reprieve from the rush around them._

"Miss! We've arrived now." A gruff voice from the front of the taxi pulled Amilyn from her sleep.

"Mmmmm…" Amilyn roused, still in the clutches of sleep, movements lethargic but like a dancer's in their grace. "How much is it?"

She handed him over the money, slightly regretting her choice of taxi once she felt how light her purse was. Thanking him, she removed herself from the seat and stumbled to her front door, letting the first few raindrops of the night drizzle over her. They felt deliciously cool over her skin, making up for the fact that they made her key slippery and even harder to get into the lock in the darkness.

Once upstairs in her tiny flat, she collapsed on her bed, too exhausted to even think about her vision. Luckily, since Leia had been able to exercise more control over her space-hopping abilities Amilyn had found she could make more sense of her visions. She seemed to innately understand the situations and recognise the strange people: context being filled in for like molten gold running in a template. She could also now remember all of the scenes, instead of them leaving her like a fraying rope. That didn't stop her from generally documenting everything, although that was more out of habit formed over the past eight years, but now she could afford a little time and a sleep before writing it down.

"Amilyn?" Apparently, the luxury of sleep was still out of reach. "Amilyn?"

Amilyn's brain kicked back to life in a rush once she realised her star princess was in her room. "Leia? What are you doing?" Amilyn rolled off her bed and slid down to the floor against it, leaving behind black streaks of liquid eyeliner on her sheets.

Leia was sat opposite her amongst a sizeable pile of various types of cushions Amilyn had collected over the years, "Is this a bad time? I can leave if you-"

"No, don't," Amilyn began, gaining energy. "It's fine, I'm always happy to talk to you."

"I've been thinking about our conversations recently," Leia started softly. Amilyn immediately seized up, her hands spontaneously clammy: such a reaction wasn't uncommon for her anymore. "I'm worried about you." And there was the phrase Amilyn never wanted to hear. She was more than happy to take care of everyone else: Leia, the public, random drunk people she met in the bathrooms of parties. Herself was another matter. She had all she needed; the thought of other people taking care of her when she had been self-reliant for so long caused her to put iron walls up.

"What?" With her mouth dry, the words came out sharply. "I'm fine."

"I know that is what you believe, but I'm not so sure. I know you Amilyn, and these past few months you've been… well, not you."

A fire raged in Amilyn's brain: this was the make or break point. She could take Leia's offer of help, or she could lay back and suffocate among the flames. She knew which one she wanted. "I've been fine!" Unfortunately, her mouth did not agree with her brain.

"Amilyn," Leia continued gently: the cool-headed diplomat despite Amilyn's outburst and her own usual fire. "You really haven't. Almost every time I've been here your home has been full of work, an unhealthy amount of work - and if that's coming from me then there really is something wrong - and your mind has been elsewhere. But not like your usual distraction that I know you can be prone to, it's like parts of your mind are permanently away. Like when you mumble something about not having enough sleep when I notice that your hands sometimes shake when I mention going outside, or when I try to find you and I end up in someone else's bathroom."

Amilyn's shouldered sagged a little, but she wasn't finished resisting. "My work is my passion; I thought you of all people would understand that. And I thought we both knew better than to shame someone for how they decide to spend their time, and who with." Despite her strong words, her tone lacked fire, instead it was simply a small pile of smouldering embers Leia was extinguishing within seconds.

"I'm not judging you Amilyn, far from it. I trust you to do the right thing, although I fear that you are doing the right thing for yourself less and less. Pushing yourself to go out so many times is just as unhealthy as locking yourself away. I should know Am, I've done both."

And so Leia had disarmed Amilyn. Arduous months that had turned into years had both built her up and broken her down, but none of them forced her to confront herself them as much as the well-placed concern of her best friend had. "I just… can't do things sometimes. Things I've always been able to do, and things I definitely should be able to do. I'm a planet without an orbit."

"How long?" Leia's voice was still low but not hushed.

"Two, three years. Since we were twenty in the library's bathroom."

"Force." Amilyn didn't quite understand the implications of the word, but she understood its intent of an exclamation. "I didn't realise, I'm sorry. You even said that you were struggling, but I didn't even think that something wasn't seriously wrong until that first party."

"Don't be sorry." Amilyn couldn't be anything but direct. Her gaze turned from drowsy to undeviating from Leia. "My health is not your responsibility."

"But I'm your friend." Leia crossed the room to sit next to Amilyn. "I can't help but care about you." She held her hand out a hair breadth's away from Amilyn's shoulder, "Can I?"

Amilyn nodded, so Leia gently tugged at her unique hair, twirling the tip of it around her fingers.

"We should do something." Amilyn turned to Leia. "Do you want to watch a film?" Most of her interactions with Leia had carried heavy emotional weight; she didn't want this one to be wholly burdened with their problems.

"What's a film?"

"It's a moving picture. With sound. They tell stories, some are funny, some are thrilling, some are emotional…"

"Oh it's like a holovid then. I confess I've barely watched any beyond the news and trashy romance vids of my ill-advised teenage past."

"I don't really watch them either. Apart from not letting myself relax, I just had my interests held elsewhere. Sometimes I think I've missed out on something; if they tell stories, shouldn't we be listening to them?" Amilyn wondered, her gaze wandering off into space while her heart hammered at every twirl of her hair by Leia.

"With an attitude like that, you should definitely put a funny one on." Leia grinned up at her friend, her smile infectious. Amilyn laughed along, relishing in the uplifting air Leia brought with her - a comedy night with a friend (and resolve to get some medical help) after a tough time was exactly what she needed.

Rising, Amilyn immediately missed the touch of Leia's skin, but she set up the film in just a few seconds. "I don't have much," she started, arranging her haphazard cushion pile into a sofa-like structure for the two, "But I do have this comedy from a few years back that I apparently _had_ to watch. You have marriage customs right?"

And so Leia and Amilyn were lost in the concept of outrageous situations varying different types of people may find themselves in, all due to one friend's wedding. The night wore on with uncontrollable laughter and light radiating from the pair, both women completely comfortable with the other and with their pile of overstuffed cushions. For the first time in almost three years, Amilyn Holdo was genuinely relaxing.

* * *

 **A/N** : the film they watched was _Bridesmaids_ , in case anyone was wondering


	7. vii

Leia Organa sat in her plush office chair with a sensation of fear curdling in her stomach as she looked over the sprawling skyscrapers of Coruscant. It had been a while since she had felt fear like it; of course in the three years since restoring democracy to the galaxy she still had worries that her fledgling government would fail, or the old Empire would rise from the ashes and cull them all again. But those things hadn't happened, her political career was still intact as a Senator, her and Han had finally worked things out, got married even, and he was doing well as a trader (legitimately, this time). When she had time for them, she even had friends in her own dimension, although none of them she trusted as much as Amilyn, who was doing as well as Leia was from what she could tell. Few things could disrupt her then, fewer things could scare her. Leia, as a Force-sensitive (a Force-sensitive who relied on instinct more so than the little training she had garnered from Luke), could no longer ignore the little spark that had ignited in her mind a month previously: a spark that had come from inside her. She had yet to go to the medbay to confirm, but she was almost completely sure she was pregnant.

Anxiety more so than joy washed over her when she considered children: she knew Han would be over several moons, but she had little idea of how to balance a child with her hectic work life, let alone a possible Force-sensitive child with unreliable family history. She had fought for so long to make the galaxy safe, yet she could not fathom how she was going to raise a child without making a monumental mistake.

"Threepio." She summoned through her comlink, "Cancel all my meetings for the rest of the day; I'm going out on important business."

"Yes, Senator. Although, may I ask-"

"No Threepio, you may not. You'll find out in due time." While she trusted her service droid with most things, including the day to day running of her office, Han deserved to be the first to know of this. Making her way to her private med clinic, she considered her two cancelled meetings for the first time that day. She had gone through all but the remaining three hours of her work day without actually thinking too deeply about her work: her thoughts always strayed back to the life that was most likely growing inside of her. It was more unfair on those who relied on her if she did bad job than a late job, she concluded as she pulled her speeder up to the clinic. It was now or never.

"We'll be back in just a minute with your results." Her kindly doctor informed Leia with a tiny vial of her blood in their hands. Leia nodded, breaking into a nervous smile that she hoped masked the hammering of her heart. She didn't even know what she wanted the result to be, yet she couldn't concentrate on anything without nausea threatening to overtake her. "Hello again," Her doctor was back in what felt like seconds rather than minutes. "I'm happy to report that you're going to be a mother." Leia didn't even get to nod before she fainted.

* * *

"Miss Holdo! Miss can you-" A young intern rushed up to Amilyn, panting in his hurry to get to her. "Can you get these to Ms Loring please? It's urgent."

"We do have email." She took the wad of papers from the young man's hands regardless of her words.

His flushed face paled rapidly, "Yes, of-of course." He shuffled back down the corridor. Amilyn hoped that she wasn't too harsh on him, she never meant to be, but sometimes her tone appeared to be more harsh than it actually was. She could remember what being an intern was like, almost a decade previously, although her current position as a legislative aide automatically intimidated the younger staff before they met her.

"Hey Anna," Amilyn knocked on her boss' office door, alerting the policy analyst to her presence.

"Come in."

Amilyn entered, confident to be in her mentor's office. "I've got some papers for you from a Mx Russio."

"'Mx Russio?" She appeared to be confused: an emotion Amilyn had little associated with Anna Loring.

"Yes, Mx is a gender-neutral honorific used-"

Anna waved her off, taking the documents, "I know what it is, I just don't know anyone who contacts me by a letter, let alone anyone named Russio."

"Oh. Is there anything else you need me for?"

"That population report…" Anna turned to her, raising one untamed black eyebrow.

"It's already sitting in your inbox, along with the feedback on the new tram system."

Amilyn's hard work did not go unnoticed; Anna grinned gratefully. "You're an angel Amilyn, I swear. I would say go and take an early break, but you know as well as I do…"

"Our job is never done." Amilyn completed before leaving the room to return to her desk, where another two hours of running the city awaited her.

Exactly two hours after handing the intern's documents over to Anna, a timer beeped demandingly on Amilyn's desk, alerting her to her designated lunch break. Using timers to set routines and remind herself to give herself a break and eat properly for the day was a habit she had picked up from her therapy sessions years previously, and a habit she had transferred to Leia. Amilyn's heart swelled with pride whenever she thought about her rebel friend, for she was a rebel no longer: Leia was doing exactly what Amilyn was aiming to do - changing her world using the government of the people. Of course Amilyn still couldn't hold back at least a small smile when thoughts of Leia permeated her mind, but now the thought that Leia would most likely never kiss her (again) no longer filled Amilyn with pain; instead a quiet acceptance had crept up on her and wrapped the thought of Leia up in purely warmth.

The rush of traffic pulled Amilyn back into her own world of polluted streets and the lunch time rush of office workers in suits swarming the streets. A slight sense of smugness settled over her as she passed the coffee shop that she used to have to shakily visit several times a week at the whims of lazy men - now she at least got to choose where she got her lunch from, and she did so without something in her mind persistently screaming at her that something was wrong, instead of having to pick between an over-sugared pastry from the chain shop or whatever she threw together at home (which was very little, at the time). An independent shop tucked into the corner of a building only a street away was happy to have her custom, serving her noodles and vegetables spiced with flavours from all over the world. Today Amilyn relished in the steam of the rustic space: it was a pleasant reprieve from the stresses and frustrations of her job. Savouring the tingling sensation warming her mouth, Amilyn's mind wandered: the tingling had spread throughout her body, along with conviction that another vision was waiting for her, impatient to be released.

So Amilyn gulped down the rest of her noodle soup, wiped her hands, and excused herself to no one in particular to go to the bathroom, where she knew that nobody would be in the sparse eatery. Settling herself down on a spindly stool opposite a mirror, Amilyn let the vision envelop her.

 _Leia in her office in the sprawling megatropolis of Coruscant, political datapads surrounding her but barely touched. Amilyn buying a tiara along with her next bottle of hair dye; the osmium reminding her of Gatalenta's suns. Dented metal bracelets being nervously spun around Leia's slight wrists as she waits for Han to return home, eager but terrified. The woosh of a speeder rushing past her as Amilyn plans her campaign to be Senator Holdo, knowing that the Council of Mothers of Gatalenta won't be happy but when has she ever actually taken their advice?_

Amilyn shot back to life, her eyelids bursting open once the vision had released her. Concern for Leia overtook her: Leia was somewhere between elated and petrified. Amilyn was sure that her visions of Leia were in real time, however, neither her nor Leia could place where the other-Amilyn originated from - Leia was certain that there was no Amilyn Holdo in her rebellion, and had yet to find one in her galaxy, even one that didn't match the Amilyn Holdo of earth. They both assumed that she was just a possibility that never came to be.

"Leia." Amilyn whispered, as if will alone could project her voice through the dimensions directly into Leia's mind. "Leia are you okay?" There was no question that Leia wouldn't be fine: Amilyn had experienced Leia in true pain and peril before, and the concern for Leia's emotional well-being now was mild in comparison the intensity of the fear that propelled her body then. Only the sound of Amilyn's ticking watch echoed back to her. Checking it, Amilyn found that she had only little time to get back to her desk. "Leia I've got to go now, but you know that you can come and see me anytime. We can watch a film tonight, if you want. Did you know that it's been exactly five years since we watched our first film together?" No answer. Amilyn hadn't expected it to work, yet she sighed all the same. Leaving the bathroom, she tipped the waitress generously as always, and made the journey back to her office in record time.

"Amilyn," Anna was loitering outside of her own office, papers in hand and seemingly waiting for her aide's return. "Do you have a moment to step into my office?"

Having only just returned from her rush back to her desk, Amilyn was still flushed and full of energy. At Anna's words she had to struggle with herself for a moment to reassure herself that it was highly unlikely that Anna was going to fire her or do anything of the sort, and even if that did happen it wouldn't be a catastrophic event. "Of course." Amilyn smiled, all thoughts of the worst-case scenario squashed.

Once inside the oak-cased room, Anna motioned for the pair to sit down. Taking a seat, she started, "You remember I got correspondence from a Mx Russio earlier today?"

"Yes. Did you find out who they are?" Amilyn's posture in Anna's plush chair was impeccable.

"They're from central government. Apparently a friend of a friend who knows you from the astronomy department at the city's university was listening to your political plans, and Russio is interested?"

"Interested how?" More than aware that Anna had actually given away very little, Amilyn was intrigued.

"Russio is a Chief Policy Maker in central government, and they're hiring. They wanted someone new in, someone with fresh ideas who wouldn't be stopped by the words of others, and they didn't trust their human resources department to provide that. They did some digging themselves, asked around… and your record and references impressed them enough to want to interview you for a Policy Analyst position."

"Oh." Externally, Amilyn was perfectly composed. Internally, she was so stunned that it felt like all of her brain activity had just halted. "So when is this interview?"

"They're happy to have you up next week. Russio has provided their contact details so you can settle on a time."

"Thank you." Amilyn finally let her face relax.

"Anytime Amilyn." Anna returned the smile, knowing that Amilyn was thanking her for more than delivering good news. "We'll be sorry to see you go, Holdo. You're a damn good worker."

"I haven't even got the job yet!" Amilyn rose, ready to depart back to her desk.

Anna shook her head, "You'll get it. Now go on, go write a report or do something else below what we both know you're capable of."

* * *

"Han?" Leia called, her fingers tangled up in Amilyn's bracelet. "Han I've got something to tell you." It had only been a matter of hours since she had received the fateful news of her impending motherhood, but Leia was still as tumultuous as she had been at the med clinic. Only her career in politics and leadership could give her the skills she possessed to steel her voice free from worry.

"What is it Princess?" Judging by the look on his face, Han knew her too well to be fooled.

"Han I think you should sit down." He did so, yet her words did nothing to decrease his worry.

"Wh-"

"I'm pregnant." She rushed, interrupting him before she lost her nerve.

A pause occured; Han's face retained the same concern in his furrowed brows that it had when he walked into their living room. "You're pregnant?"

Then Leia's heart truly began to thud. The fear that Han would get up and leave her that had started as a tiny stone in the pit of her stomach that she could scoff at only grew until it threatened to close off her airways. "Han, please say someth-"

"Well Leia this is amazing!" His whole face lifted with his grin. "We're going to have a proper little family!" Laughing with joy, he ran his large hands up Leia's arms to cup her face, where the relief was palpable.

"You're happy? You're truly happy?"

Han answered her with a kiss which Leia melted into immediately, her mind filled with repeats of ' _Oh thank Force'_. "We're going to be the best little family the galaxy has ever seen," Han started, as if he sensed his wife's fears. "And we're starting now. I'm cooking tonight, anything you want. What about omelette? That's your favourite."

"Whatever you want Han, I really don't mind."

Han was already up and rustling around the kitchen unit, analysing ingredients. "We don't have any Gartro eggs! Can you believe that? I'll go out and get some-" He halted upon seeing Leia still frozen in her place on the sofa. "Will you be okay if I go out? You can put your feet up then, you don't have to traipse around Coruscant."

For all of her exhilaration, Leia's mood sank a little at his face. As loyal as bantha, Han was so overwhelmingly concerned that Leia wished he wouldn't be like that for the whole of her pregnancy. "I'm only a month along!" She protested.

"I will be as quick as I can." And Han threw his jacket on and left, leaving Leia a little startled by the whirl of activity in such a short amount of time.

Within a few seconds, the silence of the apartment was too much for Leia - as much as she valued her solitude, she did not feel as if she needed or even wanted to be alone. After Han, she had only two people she wanted to inform of her news, and she could sense that Luke had at least an inkling of what was developing inside her. Amilyn however, would have no idea and would be excited for her, Leia was sure. Focusing on her friend, Leia willed herself to be with her, thinking only of Amilyn's laugh, the joyous tones washing over her -

And suddenly Leia was right where she wanted to be: in Amilyn's apartment. Amilyn was lucky to earn enough to rent a flat by herself: a mid-size living space on the first floor. Leia had manifested herself halfway up the stairs.

"Amilyn! Amilyn are you home?" Leia called, climbing the white stairs to make her way into the hallway.

"I'm in here!" Amilyn answered, not specifying where she was knowing that Leia wouldn't need it. No matter where Amilyn moved, or from which planet Leia was on, the two always found each other like an anchor tied them together.

Leia's face lit up at the sight of her friend poring over documents in her office/living room (the room was half of each, since Amilyn couldn't decide which one she wanted more). "Leia! It's so good to see you." Amilyn rose, greeting her friend with an automatic hug: a touch Leia always forgot she missed until she was in Amilyn's arms.

"It's good to see you too Am," Leia leant into the hug, letting Amilyn's unique scent that never failed to ground her envelop her. Today she smelled like faded fruits: the in-between scent of a strong perfume that had been neglected since leaving work.

"Hey Leia, are you okay? This is a long hug." Amilyn chuckled, yet Leia only held on tighter to Amilyn's flowing dress.

"I'm fine, I just really wanted to see you." Leia's words were true, she realised as she sat down. Seeing Amilyn never failed to cause all of the tension Leia carried around with her daily to seep out of her muscles; just being in the presence of her friend soothed her. "Well, that's not just it. I'm… certainly more than fine."

Amilyn raised one perfect eyebrow and tilted her head in response. She didn't have to wait long for an answer, even if Leia's gaze fluttered momentarily too long to her friend's sharp jawline. "I'm pregnant."

"Wow, Leia." Amilyn's awed reply was immediate. "That's amazing. Are you happy?"

A small smile crept over Leia's lips: the little flame in her heart that bloomed whenever she let herself think about a future child without her fears taking over grew, rising higher and higher. "I think I am. I think I'm really excited, I'm going to have a child."

"And it will be a really cute child." That meant a lot to Leia; she knew Amilyn had rarely thought about children. "You _are_ happy, yes? You kept saying 'I think'."

Nothing got past Amilyn, although Leia knew that there was most likely genuine confusion in there. Try as she might, Amilyn would never be the socialite that Leia was raised to be. "I am, truly. I just worry, between my genetic parentage and my career…"

As she trailed off, Amilyn took over, "You think that you're going to be a bad parent?"

"I'm worried that I'm going to mess the child up."

Amilyn immediately shuffled closer to Leia, and took her slight hands in her own. "Leia, listen to me." Leia let her chin be pulled to face Amilyn, her gaze unbreaking and intense in its conveyance of love. "You're fears may not be unfounded; you're a busy woman. But you and Han are full of love and determination: you will make this work." She enunciated the final phrase. "Your child will have the best life. I can promise that, because I know you, and you will promise that to your child, if you haven't already. Your worrying shows that you most likely already have."

Leia nodded, tears falling before she even realised that they had formed. "You're right. We'll be fine."

"You'll be more than fine."

The pair embraced again. Leia took all the reassurance Amilyn could offer, grateful that such a woman was in her life, even if it was by unconventional means. "Thank you."

"Anytime, Leia." Silence fell afterwards, the pair both saturated from the variety of emotions within the room.

"I've been requested for an interview in central government next week. In policy analysing." Amiyn absent-mindedly revealed her own big news.

"Oh Amilyn that's amazing! I knew you'd get to your dream job soon." It was Leia's turn to fawn over her friend with her tears wiped away and forgotten.

"Well it's not quite my _dream_ job, although I'm only twenty-seven, so I'm still young in politics terms." She mused.

"Regardless, they're going to love you." Amilyn's attention returned to Leia then, her head back from the clouds.

"Apparently their hiring process was based much more on personality than usual."

"See!" Leia excitedly prodded Amilyn. "I told you someone would see your weirdness and realise that that as _exactly_ what they wanted one day, even if you were surrounded by conservative politicians."

The pair chuckled again. "You're going to be a great parent, Leia."

"And you're going to be a great policy maker."

"Analyst."

"You'll be ordering your whole country around before you know it." Leia shot back, suddenly aware of how little time they had left together. "I have to go."

Amilyn's face no longer fell whenever Leia announced her (reluctant) intentions of leaving. Her features were schooled into a sweet smile of acceptance, "Of course. Come back soon though, I'm going to order you a load of teas that are good for you and the baby."

"I will." Leia promised as she untangled her fingers from Amilyn's. "Goodbye." Such casual words never felt like enough to hold the emotions that Leia experienced when she was with or leaving Amilyn; she couldn't leave a dimension with a sole 'goodbye'. Yet she did, and as she sat in her apartment alone, waiting for Han's return, Leia slowly became aware that the stirrings in her heart that she felt when she thought of Han were not dissimilar to those that occurred when she was with Amilyn. The thought that her feelings towards Amilyn were purely platonic had to be tossed aside; Amilyn would be disappointed in her if she continued to lie to herself. She couldn't tell anyone, however, she was with Han, and she loved him with all of her heart, and she wouldn't have trusted anyone aside from her best friend with this information (normally she would have included her brother, but Luke wasn't exactly a master in relationships), but she wasn't going to risk her friendship with Amilyn for anything.

"Looks like it's just you and me who are going to be aware of this." She spoke aloud, looking down at her still-flat abdomen. "And we're both going to be ignoring this. We're with Han now." Leia asserted, using the same excuse she had been for six years, except this time she was actually aware of it.

"Hey Princess, I've got those Gartro eggs, one omelette coming up soon!" The man occupying her thoughts strolled through the door. Leia immediately jumped up from her chair to embrace him, the feeling that she was incredibly fortunate to have him in her life running through her, whether he was occasionally overbearing in his love or not. "Hey, what's that for?"

"Just felt like it." Leia smiled up at him.

"Pregnancy hormones already?" He smirked, back to the Han Leia knew and loved.

"Oh, shut up you." She swatted him playfully, but her smile didn't fade.


	8. viii

The pregnancy was a whirl of nausea and emotions for Leia; as much as she wanted to keep working, throwing up one minute and crying the next along with Han hovering around was more than a little impractical. Nonetheless, holding her tiny baby boy Ben after a million (or ten, depending on who was asked) hours of labour was worth the low moments of the pregnancy. His first cry had silenced Han in his wonder, which was the first time the excited father was quiet since Leia's announcement, something she was grateful for. Even then she knew that there would be many a cacophonous night ahead.

Leia hummed a quiet tune on the edge of Ben's cot at the culmination of one such night. The serenity of the still bedroom calmed her; only the soft breaths of a baby and his mother were heard - a tranquil juxtaposition to Ben's tired shrieks previously. A wish for Han to be there and holding her, to join Leia in the peace diffused through the air as she remembered that he was as deep asleep as their baby boy, exhausted from flying around the stars and making trading runs in double to time to ensure that he could be home for Ben while Leia returned to work. As the chronometer ticked on, Leia realised that she didn't mind being alone with her son, grateful even, since such moments passed fleetingly and before she knew it he would be two years old instead of months; she didn't want to blink and miss half of his life. If there was one thing Amilyn had taught her, it was to appreciate the little moments in life.

Stroking Ben's plump cheek one last time, Leia rose to wander the apartment, her mind having wandered from the magic of the moment. Try as she might, Leia could not force herself to sleep despite returning to work as well as having all of the responsibilities of being a mother. Knowing that Amilyn would chastise her for dwelling on negative thoughts (and she herself knew better than to wallow in darkness), Leia turned to focusing on Amilyn herself. It had been more time that Leia liked since she had visited, wishing she had more hours in the week so she could carve out a specific time to see her friend. Grabbing a small bag containing a gift Leia had been intending to pass on in the two weeks since she had last seen Amilyn, Leia concentrated solely on the energy flowing through her, and how it always seemed to triple in the presence of her friend, until she opened her eyes a to Amilyn's apartment and, that time, the pile of Amilyn's beloved mishmash of cushions that doubled as their sofa whenever Leia visited. Of course Amilyn had an actual sofa, but Leia had serious doubts on the consistency of its use, plus she always had fond memories of comedy nights and her best friend's laughter associated with the jumble of fluff.

"Amilyn!" Leia called, abandoning her royal posture to settle into the cushions. "It's me!"

"I'll be right there!" Amilyn answered, accustomed to the sudden appearances of Leia around her.

"Do you want a cup of tea? I'm making one." Restless, Leia strode to the kitchen, proud of her new abilities in using electrical kitchen appliances.

"No thank you, I'm good for now!"

"Alright." Leia switched the kettle on (which was already full of water; she had remembered to check first in order to avoid breaking a second of Amilyn's kettles), and searched Amilyn's cupboards for tea. There were many varieties, from all types of fruit to ginger, which made Leia's heart sink a little: she would never get to share her Alderaanian teas with Amilyn, or her son. Selecting a pomegranate tea that she had not tried before, Leia turned back to the middle of the kitchen, only to be startled by Amilyn standing behind her.

"Sorry, did I scare you?" Amilyn teased, her wide grin indicating to Leia that she was fully aware that she had. Leia stuttered through the next few seconds: her synapses had collapsed at the sight of Amilyn fresh from the shower wrapped in only a towel. A short towel. Leia allowed herself only a fleeting glance upwards from her taller friend's slender legs, past Amilyn's glistening collarbones and landing on Amilyn's grin. She wasn't entirely comfortable with her attraction to her friend yet - maybe if she didn't have Ben she could have worked something out, but she could not risk her young family. It didn't matter that Amilyn's (adorable) face made her heart beat just as quickly as her long legs did - she could get through a conversation about tea without going into cardiac arrest because her friend had just come out of the shower. "You know you did." Leia shook her head at both her friend's cheekiness and her own thoughts.

"Is it done?" Amilyn asked, motioning towards the tea and leaning much closer into Leia's personal space.

"Yes, go ahead." Leia softened at her friend's proximity. "Hang on-" Amilyn was already sipping the tea, her grin wider than the mug when Leia realised, "You said you didn't want one!"

Giggling to herself, Amilyn handed the tea back to Leia. "Your tea making skills have improved. I'll go get changed and meet you in the lounge." Amilyn left as quickly as she came, leaving Leia alone with her cup of tea.

Leia didn't feel alone in the living room however, she and her calming tea stewed in the silence. With Han and Ben both safe sound asleep, she relished the time to herself, even if (especially if) that time also included Amilyn rustling around in the background.

"How are you?" Amilyn sank into her sofa next to Leia, knocking her knees in solidarity (thankfully fully dressed in light leggings and a tunic).

"I'm happy." Leia turned her head towards Amilyn's, using her face to part Amilyn's locks of baby pink hair close to her own face. In Amilyn's apartment, away from the stresses of her life, she felt almost sleepy for the first time in months.

"I'm glad. I'm happy that you're happy with your life, your whole life. How's Ben?" Gratitude shined from Amilyn's warm smile.

"He's beautiful. Even when he keeps me up." Leia could feel the gratitude emanating from her own smile. "Actually, I've got something for you." She untucked her gift from the inside of her vest: a hidden pocket left over from her rebel days. Amilyn's expression changed from intrigue to wonder as Leia handed her over a small drawing about twenty centimetres in length and fifteen in height that showed a coloured image of herself and Ben, the small baby bundled in her arms from the perspective of over Leia's right shoulder.

"I thought that you said you didn't have paper?" Amilyn asked, hushed.

"It's extremely rare and outdated. But Luke found a stack of unused paper sealed in a box, protected from the elements in a temple while he was searching for more Jedi teachings. He didn't know what to do with it, although we both knew it was too precious to destroy. The idea came to me, a week after Ben was born, to have an artist draw us from a photograph on a datapad, so I could give it to you and you can properly see Ben." Leia would have loved nothing more than to bring Amilyn back to her worlds to show her everything her galaxy had to offer, including her little family, yet the universes were rarely on their side when it came to the two being together. They had to make do with stolen trips and delicate trinkets. "I think that you would have made an amazing auntie."

Amilyn continued to stare at it in silence with small tears swelling in her eyelids. She didn't need to vocalise anything for Leia to understand; her friend was an emotional being, but didn't believe in wasting energy on unnecessary words. Eventually, she turned to Leia to pull her into a hug, mindful of the treasure she held. "Thank you." Was all she whispered into her friend's ear, yet Leia relished the sound all the same.

"You're incredibly welcome Amilyn." Leia whispered back, squeezing a little tighter.

"How come I've barely taken you out? You describe so much of your world but you've seen so little of mine, and you're actually here." Amilyn pulled back, but kept her hands on Leia's shoulders as if reluctant to let go.

"I don't know. That doesn't make sense, does it?" Leia laughed a little, used to humour after tears with Amilyn. "You should take me up to your fancy central government building that had you all excited for well over an hour."

Amilyn joined in with the laughter, "I stand by my first impression of that building. Unfortunately it's just closed now at," she glanced at the clock on the opposite wall, "midnight as it was that night at two in the morning."

"Kriff, why do I always find the worst possible times to come and see you?" Leia felt a little frustration with herself pool in her stomach; ever since her pregnancy she had lost regularity in her meetings with Amilyn, often turning up when one or both of them should have (or were) sleeping or working.

"Don't worry about it, we will always have time for each other. We've made it these twelve years so far, haven't we?" Amilyn punctuated her rhetorical question with a spontaneous kiss on Leia's forehead and the flutter of her heart.

"Force, has it been that long?"

"Don't tell me you're sick of me," Amilyn joked, although Leia still worried that sometimes Amilyn wasn't always entirely joking.

"Of course not," Leia replied, bringing Amilyn's hands down into her own, hoping to erase any latent fears, "But it feels strange to put it into numbers."

"Like we've always known each other." Amilyn mused.

Leia wholeheartedly agreed with that statement, and nodded in assent, a little too tired to elaborate more. Picking up on Leia's telltale signs of tiredness (both Han and Amilyn had commented on how droopy her eyes got when she was fighting off sleep), Amilyn nudged her. "And _you_ should go back to bed. I know night time for me means night time for you too. If you're a working mom then you need your beauty sleep."

"I wasn't tired when I came here," Leia protested, wincing as she heard the childishness in her own voice, especially as she knew it would only encourage Amilyn into mothering her (a rare experience that generally only occurred when Leia was dead on her feet).

"I know. But you have a baby and a senatorial position, so as much as I loathe to say it, off you go." Amilyn encouraged her with mock-stern eyes.

"Alright alright. Goodbye Amilyn, I'll see you soon." As Leia released her hold on Amilyn's hands, she forgot to regulate herself in her exhausted state, and pressed a perfunctory kiss to Amilyn's cheek before leaving.

Once back in her apartment on Coruscant, Leia still hadn't really realised her unusual display of affection towards Amilyn, instead climbing into bed and curling up to her husband with a sleepy smile and a content heart.

* * *

Two years passed in a similar vein for Amilyn and Leia: the former was steadily proving herself in her dream city while also establishing herself as a part-time assistant in the city's university physics department - the universe was kind to her in that she always somehow managed to juggle her career and her hobby. Her meetings with Leia stabalised in regularity once Leia found a routine with her family and her own career. Amilyn believed the pair were truly happy with the lives that they had created for themselves.

That was until the night of Amilyn's thirtieth birthday. The day passed by like any usual day; it was the night that was different. Leia had promised to meet her, and Amilyn was excited to finally show her the authentic pizzeria they both had yet to try. However, once Leia failed to arrive in the afternoon like they had planned, Amilyn began to worry. It was the kind of worry that started as an argument in her mind - there had to be a rational explanation, such as Leia losing track of time, but no matter what argument Amilyn provided, her mind immediately circled back to something was undeniably _wrong._ The worry grew into nausea and, after a couple of hours, paralysis when she tried to distract her. Sinking into bed five hours too early, Amilyn simply laid there helpless, wishing she could get to Leia the same way Leia could get to her, or for it all to be a massive misunderstanding.

Within seconds of her head hitting the pillow, Amilyn realised the grip of her anxiety had evolved into something else - the tingling that foreshadowed a vision. Almost crying in relief, she closed her eyes to dive headfirst into it.

 _Leia's Coruscant apartment shadowed in the evening pall and the arguments of a frustrated father and overworked mother. Holdo on her own speeder amongst the quiet streets of Gatalenta, returning only to visit emotionally distant family to say goodbye since she had little plans to stay on the planet with no career opportunities for her even after the complete dissolution of the threat of the Empire. Leia and Han, again, hand in hand on the way to a park with Ben, only a few metres in front of them, not responding to their calls amongst their own bickering and stepping out in right in front of a - Amilyn on her own in hyperspace receiving the worst comm of her life-_

That time Amilyn didn't even let her vision play out, too horrified to consensually bear witness to what she knew Leia was forced to. For undoubtedly what her vision was showing her was true - they had never lied to her before. Leia Organa had just lost her son, and from across universes, Amilyn wept with her.


	9. ix

**A/N:** shoutout to alicesloane13 who helped me immensely post chapter 8, and is an all-round great friend who also some quality stories :)

trigger warning for depictions of depression/self-loathing and unhealthy alcohol use

* * *

"Han, can we just -"

"No Leia, we can't!" Han roared, a slashing sound that severed any routes to any energy sources that Leia had remaining. The usual fire that defined both her and her relationship was gone, smothered by a month of grief and, if she were being honest with herself, more than a few months of genuine arguments.

"I don't want to start throwing blame around," She begun again, just wanting to skip past another fight and go to bed.

"Well that makes a change." Han snarled at her. As Leia hung her head in her hands, she had to admit to herself that he wasn't even being unfair. There had been plenty of inequity thrown around by the pair of them; this fight was going to be more than ugly.

"You know Han, if I'm so abhorrent, why don't you just leave?" Leia snapped with all of her remaining energy.

"I will. That's the first good idea you've had in months, _Princess._ " Her former title was then also a former term of endearment with the amount of spite Han tossed with it.

Leia knew he wasn't going to be talking to her for the rest of the night, possibly week, but she had to know one more thing before he left: "Do you even love me anymore?"

He stalled at the apartment door. As he turned to face her, Leia was certain that that would be the moment when she would get an answer - despite their mostly inconsequential fights, he would always reply in the affirmative, if not in words then in the furrow of his brows that indicated his confusion at the asking of such a seemingly ridiculous question. However, then he just turned to her with a guilty expression.

"You don't," Leia said softly in realisation, "You don't and I've ruined our marriage."

Only the slamming of the door answered her.

The chronometer ticked on, the only sound filling Leia's lifeless apartment. With the singular sun set and the moons obscured, the only light illuminating Leia was from the glitter of lights of the mega-city. She couldn't bring herself to power on her own lights, instead choosing to sit and mull over what she could have done differently. Such a night wasn't uncommon, although usually Han was around to attempt to offer the comfort that neither of them felt that they deserved.

"I could have taken more time off work," she announced to the emptiness of her apartment. "That's what Han wanted." She said, as if the walls of that Coruscant apartment didn't already know the bitterness between the couple about Leia's supposed too-short leave. It wasn't what she wanted, however, no matter how much she tried to avoid micromanaging her office in the first (and only) month she stayed at home. "Did I miss too much of him growing up? Is that why he didn't listen to me?"

Leia let herself wallow in such thoughts for a few minutes longer, until her resentment of Han grew stronger than the resentment of herself: Han possibly couldn't have been entirely right. They were both out with their son; they were both equally responsible for him. Experiencing her heart sinking at the ruminations, Leia broke the thoughts off - her son was dead and all she could think about was herself? How selfish. Lifting herself off the sofa, she searched for the one thing in the apartment that could stop her thinking about it: alcohol. The grittier the better.

Settling herself against the back of the armchair on the hard floor, she took a swig of the already-open ale. She didn't want to check the label, instantly knowing the burn searing her throat was due to Corellian ale - not that she wanted to be reminded of the planet or anyone from it. All she wanted was to forget.

* * *

A week later, and the only sign of Han in the apartment was the divorce papers lying on the dining table (it was false to label it _their_ dining table, _their_ apartment anymore). After their arrival two days previously Leia had bundled up his remaining clothes and possessions and threw them out of the window in a fit of rage - the only emotion she had truly felt in the days where she refused to leave the apartment. Upon realising that it was most likely that Han would never find his favourite shirt in the bottom of some dingy back alley, Leia returned to the apathy that she was finding all too common. She was sure that there were some clothes of hers on the Millennium Falcon, his favoured ship, that she would never see again anyway.

" _Leia."_ Leia heard in her mind. It was Luke calling out to her through the Force, trying to pry more than two words from her. " _Leia are you okay?"_

Leia had not appreciated her bond with Luke less than in that moment. " _Go away."_ She repeated the only two words that she had said to him for the past week. He was invaluable in the direct aftermath of her son's death, him and Amilyn, but in the wake of the death of her marriage Leia wanted no one. It had to be added to the list of things that Leia wanted to mourn about alone.

" _We both know you're not Leia. Is it alright for me to come over?"_

" _I said kriff off Luke!"_ Despite her striking words, Leia could feel the shift in the Force as Luke determined to visit her anyway. She knew he only wanted to best for her and never meant her ill, but Leia couldn't handle the idea of someone being sickly sweet to her, too tentative to handle her as if she wouldn't break at the slightest conversation. Her mind unhelpfully reminded her that Han always did the opposite of that, but the thought didn't change anything but cause Leia to be even more repulsed by the thought of company. If her choices were to be handled like glass or pressured until she burst, she'd rather go elsewhere.

Luckily for Leia, she had the ability to do just that.

* * *

Amilyn Holdo sat in her own apartment on a rare weekend off work, debating with herself about the benefits of a strength workout versus those of a spiritual workout. Training her body would give her physical satisfaction, but extending her mind always made feel closer to Leia, and for the past month that was all she wanted to be. Her friend had gone through so many arduous times in her life, and only a couple of years into the start of a new life, she had it all come crashing down around her. Amilyn wished she could take a leave of absence from work and spend at least a week caring for Leia as much as she needed, treating her to crying fests and cuddles and at least one spa day, but the pair didn't know if Leia could even stay in Amilyn's universe for that long without retribution, and Amilyn felt that it wasn't the best time to ask Leia to further stretch her limits.

Moving to her expansive window, Amilyn soaked in the sun's rays and the vision of the beautiful day before her. The sign was high along with the faint midday moon, and the city was alive with commuters and tourists. It still didn't answer her question of what she was going to fill the next hour of her time with, however.

A small sigh from behind her answered her question. Before turning around, Amilyn checked the sky again to make sure - and of course the moon had disappeared from its previous spot in favour of reappearing on her living room sofa. There Leia sat, her hair twisted back around her head and into a bun in the same style she had used since her son died. Wordlessly, Amilyn picked up Leia's hands in her own and tugged on them to indicate to Leia to stand up. It took a glare, but Amilyn guided her to the broad windowsill where the two could sit in the sun rays somewhat comfortably.

"Han sent me divorce documents," Leia begun after a minute's patience from Amilyn. "One more signature and six hundred credits and then I'll be a divorcee."

"Is that what you want?" Amilyn asked in her general monotone, confident that Leia wouldn't misunderstand her.

Leia shrugged, a large gesture that was unbecoming of her. "It's probably what I need. I don't even know what I need, let alone what I want." She still had yet to look at Amilyn; her gaze stayed strictly towards the view of the city out of the window, although from the vacant look in her eyes Amilyn doubted that Leia was actually registering anything she was seeing.

"I think you need a shower." That got Leia's attention. "Your hair's greasy - it must itch. When was the last time you took it down, or wash it?

"This is a mourning braid," Leia explained, barely answering the question, "It's supposed to require time to make up, so you get to reflect on your loved one despite your loss. But I can do so little, I am sure that if I take it out I will never put it back up again."

Amilyn, proficient at reading between the lines after years in politics and a decade and a half of Leia, understood what Leia was trying to convey: her hair was vital to her, and she would rather be uncomfortable than risk its symbolism.

"We can do it together, if you'll let me." Amilyn offered, seizing the chance to care for Leia. "You can have a shower, because I know you've done nothing for the last week and you need one, and then we can wash your hair and I'll put it up for you."

Leia continued to stare at Amilyn, as if she had not understood her friend's words. "I didn't mean to come here today. I didn't even realise I was coming until I was on your sofa."

"I knew you were here when I saw the moon disappear." Amilyn continued smoothly, figuring that Leia would accept her offer when she was ready.

"I've told you before, I'm not your moon, no matter how similar my name is to 'Luna'." There was none of Leia's usual mirth in her face upon her automatic teasing of her friend. "I didn't know I was coming, but I think I'm glad that I'm here. Most of me wants to drag my heels in the grit and scream rather than do anything at all, but you're right - my head is kriffin' itchy."

Amilyn smiled, proud of Leia for agreeing to take care of herself of at least a week of doing the opposite. "The spare towels are in the cupboard next to the bathroom - you know where it is. Take what you want, I'll join you when you're dressed again. Do you want a bathrobe or some of my clothes?" Despite her heartache at Leia's pain, Amilyn couldn't deny she was enjoying the domesticity of the moment - if she blinked for half a second too long she could pretend that everything was okay and the couple were just enjoying a night in.

"I'll take a robe - your clothes will be too long for me." Leia stepped down from the windowsill and made her way into the hallway.

"There's a clean one on the back of the bathroom door. Call me if you need anything!"

"I will!" Leia called back, shutting the door of the bathroom and turning the water on.

Once the splashing of the shower stopped, Amilyn crossed her apartment to her bedroom to pick out the various hair care products that didn't reside in her bathroom. As someone who dyed her hair frequently, she was sure to take good care of it. Settling on a clean comb and some rehydrating oil, Amilyn perched on the end of her bed while she waited for Leia to call and fiddled with the products in her hands.

"Amilyn." Leia called from the bathroom, her voice small even as it echoed; she was truly tired right down to her bones.

"I'm coming," Amilyn replied as she pushed open the bathroom door.

Despite the higher prices in Amilyn's newer city, she had been able to afford the sale price of a sweeping apartment with a large bathroom. In it sat Leia on the edge of the bath, a brilliant white tub adorned with the beginnings of a spatial pattern. She was wrapped in Amilyn's fluffy robe with her face free of any residual makeup, which only made her dark circles hanging underneath her eyelids more prominent. "How do you want to start?" Amilyn asked in an attempt to ensure Leia's comfort.

Leia released a deep breath with another shrug: a habit, Amilyn realised, that Leia had picked up from herself. "I don't really know."

"Ok," Amilyn strode forward to take the lead. "Is it okay if I take it down and then comb it before I wash it?"

"Yes, that's fine." Leia relaxed into Amilyn's touch as Amilyn started to slide out hair clips and untwist braids, careful to avoid catching any knots. Shutting her eyes, Leia murmured, "Maybe I should do what you do. Dye my hair all over. That lilac shade you've got now is very fitting for you."

"I must confess, it's my favourite so far," Amilyn carefully set Leia's clips aside to comb out the week-long hairstyle. "But I think red highlights would look good on you."

"I've seen enough red in my life."

"Leia Organa, talking in metaphors? You've been around me too much." Amilyn joked, distracting her friend from the sharp pain of her knotted hair getting combed out.

"I've not been around you enough, honestly."

That tugged at Amilyn's heart like the comb tugged on Leia's hair. "We've been just fine Leia," She promised. "Tilt your head back."

Leia did as instructed. Running her hands through Leia's long brown locks, Amilyn brought the showerhead and its warm running water over Leia's head and hair.

"This divorce was a long time coming." Leia stated, obviously safe in Amilyn's hands. "When I wasn't blaming myself, I was blaming Han. He wouldn't always take that; he made me realise that I was wrong to pick fights with him day and night. But when I apologised, he didn't accept it. I don't think either of us realised that he wouldn't accept it until it happened."

Amilyn continued to wash Leia's hair, smoothing out the tension that Leia was releasing. "You were fighting well before the accident."

"Yes. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"It's okay," Amilyn said, her tone neutral but not insincere. She tapped Leia's cheek gently, indicating for Leia to lean into from the spray of water so Amilyn could properly rinse out the shampoo. "But you've got to remember that you can share your problems with other people, multiple other people. It's the first step in looking forward. I know you know that Leia; you're the one who taught me it."

For a few minutes, the pair were silent as Amilyn's words sunk in. They communicated solely through Amilyn's non verbal instructions that Leia didn't even need to see, just to feel, to understand. Fourteen years of friendship had moulded their relationship unbreakable, Amilyn mused.

"You're not wrong Am. But can we leave this for now? I haven't thought about anything else for too long."

"Of course Leia. I'm almost done with this wash. Shall I dry it right away?" Amilyn asked, carrying on the flow of their conversation without stalling. She knew better than to ask if Leia wanted to let her hair dry naturally - the curses of the time when Leia's own hairdryer broke were vivid in Amilyn's mind.

"Please."

So Amilyn led Leia out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, where a towel was set out on the floor for Leia to sit on. "It's messier in here than I thought it would be." Leia mused, having no been in Amilyn's bedroom since she moved.

"I finally got my constellation curtains though." Amilyn motioned towards the midnight blue fabric while she dug out her own hairdryer.

"You're such a - what do you call it? Nerd?" Leia finally allowed herself to smile, the affection for her friend shining through.

Amilyn laughed too, "Yes, nerd."

Once Leia's hair was dry and sleek from the wash (and Amilyn's preferred heat-protection spray), Amilyn set to work on twisting Leia's hair into the intricate style that she had arrived in. In between directions, Leia asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"You're my friend," Amilyn said simply, yet she was aware that Leia wouldn't be satisfied with such an answer, so she continued, "You're the other half of me. The moon to my sun, or maybe the sun to my moon depending on the day. Of course I'm going to take care of you, I love you." Slotting a final pin in, Amilyn returned her hands to the floor to tell Leia that she was finished with the hair. Amilyn hadn't expected to be quite so loose with her words, but she was glad the words were out there all the same. She did love Leia, in many different ways for many different reasons, and she could see that Leia was in need of hearing it.

"Thank you." In the following silence, Leia inspected her hair from different angles in the mirror on the stool in front of her.

"It's not a perfect replication." Amilyn said, although both women knew that Leia's thanks wasn't entirely for just the hair.

"It's a good first try though. Amilyn…" Trailing off, Leia twisted her body around to become face to face with Amilyn sat cross-legged on the floor directly behind her.

"Yes?" Amilyn encouraged, expecting to return to the problems that were too difficult for her to express while Amilyn was washing her hair.

"I…" Leia cut herself off before she begun, instead choosing to cross the distance between them to kiss Amilyn; it was heated and desperate and Amilyn broke it off immediately.

"No Leia, I can't do this to you," Rejecting her may have been the most painful thing Amilyn had ever done, but taking advantage of her grieving friend would have been so much worse. "You-"

"Kriff, I am so sorry," Leia spluttered. "I should just go."

Yet before Leia could jump up and run away, Amilyn gripped on to her wrist and pulled Leia back to her. "Leia, listen to me. This is not the time for that - I can not and will not take advantage of you. You are grieving and going through an emotional wildfire right now. I'm not saying no for definite, I'm saying no for right now."

"You wouldn't be taking advantage of me, you wouldn't ever take advantage of me." Leia protested, although her voice was small.

"What if you wake up after a week, a month, a year, and realise that you were just lonely? Desperate for affection after so much loss?" Just the thought threatened to break Amilyn. She would stand by Leia forever, but a having and then losing a romantic and possibly her entire relationship with Leia would fracture the pair of them.

"But I've wanted this for so long…" Leia started again, refusing to move an inch.

"Wait at least another month." Amilyn relented, blinking solely as if another microsecond without seeing Leia would somehow clear her mind of her.

"A week." Leia argued.

"A month." Amilyn reiterated, her voice stronger. "You are going to go home, mend your relationship with Luke - yes I can tell you've been ignoring him - and most importantly, mend your relationship with yourself. Treat yourself as you should, alleviate yourself of blame, because accidents are _accidents_ Leia, to imply otherwise would be contradictory, and come back to me when you're sure. Because I don't want us to solely be defined by trauma, Leia." Amilyn couldn're dare hope for Leia to truly mean her words of wanting this for so long, because she was so sure that it was only born out of misery. The memory of their previous kiss, after Leia's imprisonment, was close to the forefront of Amilyn's mind: afterwards, Leia had said that she 'had to do that at least once', but had made no move to even talk about the kiss after that, let alone repeat it. While she didn't believe any romance was going to be the result of that second kiss, Amilyn was going to at least ensure that it would be discussed properly, and Leia was going to get the help she didn't realise she was asking for.

"Ok," Leia too gave in, although her true thoughts were obscured to Amilyn without her even realising, blinded by the surety that so many years of friendship meant that she knew Leia inside out. "But for now, can I have my friend Amilyn Holdo back?"

"Oh Leia, you never lost her." Amilyn pulled her into an embrace, awkward as it was on the floor. "You never will."

"Thank you." Leia breathed against Anilyn's chest. "Now can we go and watch trashy tv and pretend like everything's alright?"

Amilyn's laugh reverberated around Leia's head. "Of course. Come on then." The pair rose together, leaving behind Amilyn's messy bedroom in favour of the familiar pile of fluffy cushions and awful 'reality' shows that were their guilty pleasure.


	10. x

The month's separation for the pair went by with Leia aching to see Amilyn, but determined to ensure she could rely on herself if her day went dark. As much as she wanted to be with her friend, she knew she had to put herself first, something she had very little practice of. Plus, she didn't think she could be around Amilyn with the knowledge she had acquired: Amilyn was happy, more than happy even, to change their relationship. To kiss her. To do things with her that made her stomach flip and guilt pool. There was little love lost between her and Han anymore, but that didn't stop her wondering if she was moving on too quickly. The only thoughts that stopped those were thoughts of Amilyn.

" _Maker you have it bad."_ Luke's voice echoed around her brain, the constant presence in the force projecting his thoughts to her clearly. " _I think the whole galaxy knows you like her."_

Leia couldn't even think of a witty reply.

The day came around when Leia was due to go back to Amilyn. She hadn't meant for it to become such a landmark in her mind (and on her calendar), but after little distractions from her thoughts (she had deliberately taken up only some of her senatorial duties after her leave of absence - she had seen Amilyn overwork herself to avoid addressing her problems and Leia knew that she would do the same thing), she was forced to set aside some time for herself and her emotions - and Amilyn was the focus of a fair few of them.

Trying not to fuss over every tiny detail of her outfit (a simple pale pink dress in a similar style to the rest of Leia's wardrobe) and her hair (a casual braided bun that echoed the mourning braid, but was not an exact match - Leia wouldn't start a new relationship while wearing the grave of the previous one), focused her energy and intention on Amilyn and being around her. She travelled easily, with only a slight feeling of being pulled; it was as if dimension-jumping was just another skill that Leia and so many others had picked up throughout her life. It was just unique to her however, as if it was her place throughout the universes to be with Amilyn - she was too skeptical to be sure of that idea, but she knew that Amilyn wouldn't be.

Leia opened her eyes to see just the person she was thinking of staring back at her with wide eyes. It wasn't uncommon for those pretty blue eyes to be so wide however - Leia was sure that that was just how Amilyn looked at the world: with wonder. She always found something to be fascinated with.

Leia gave her something to be fascinated with. Unable to help herself, Leia pulled Amilyn's face down to meet hers in a long overdue kiss. The warmth of the sun flooding Amilyn's apartment did nothing to compare to the warmth that spread through Leia as she held Amilyn; there in Amilyn's arms she was home, and they both knew it.

"I can't believe that you didn't think that I would want to kiss you again," Leia breathed against Amilyn's skin, "Sometimes that's all I want to do."

"I had to make sure," Amilyn replied as a lock of multicoloured hair tumbled between them. "You're the one thing in my life I could never afford to lose."

"I'm sorry," Leia begun, her arms still around Amilyn's neck; even with the height difference it wasn't uncomfortable. "For the first kiss. When we were nineteen: I thought I was going to die and you were so… intriguing. I had to know what being with you would feel like, but I had already made a promise to myself to not get tangled up in unnecessary relationships. My rebellion had to come first. And then I met Han and… just made a massive mess of things."

"I understand Leia. I also wouldn't say you made a massive mess of things." With just a few words Amilyn caught the negative thoughts that Leia couldn't quite curb and turned them inside out, showing Leia nothing but love.

"That's true." Leia acknowledged, refusing to let herself drown. "I never made a mess with you."

Amilyn kissed her softly: the first kiss with Leia that she had initiated. "Do you want to go out? That pizza place is still open."

"Amilyn Holdo," Leia pulled back, beaming as she ran her hands down Amilyn's arms, "Are you asking me out on a date?"

An unbidden blush formed in Amilyn's drawn-out cheeks. "Maybe," It had been a while since she had deliberately been coy, yet it still had a great effect on Leia: her own smile slipped out. "If you're up for it."

"Of course I am." Leia eyes crinkled; the stars that shone in them shone with mirth.

"It's a date." Amilyn swooped down to kiss Leia on her nose before she led her out of the apartment, barely remembering to pick up her bag and shoes on the way.

* * *

Nine pieces of pizza later, Amilyn and Leia were fully sated at their candlelit table. The Saturday evening in a big city meant that they were far from alone, but the couple were surrounded by their own bubble. Even their water had to clear his throat a few times before he got their attention, as lost in each other as they were.

"Would you like a refill?" He asked, referencing their soft drinks.

"No thank you." Leia replied primly, confident in how much of the dining culture she had picked up so far (mostly due to the stark similarities to her own, but she could never be sure. Amilyn could be a strange woman, although after time in public in her world Leia had begun to think that it wasn't the culture differences that made Amilyn strange, just her personality.).

As he left, his absence revealed a family that had just entered the restaurant, a young boy holding the hand of his mother while his father cradled a baby. The images of her and Han and Ben rushed to the forefront of her mind, glazing her eyes over as what could have been pricked at her skin.

"Leia? Do you want to leave?" Amilyn was there, as always. She must have noticed the abnormal gulp as Leia's breath got stuck in her throat and where her gaze was fixated.

"No, no I," Blinking, Leia breathed deeply to clear her mind. She was with Amilyn, and there was nothing wrong with that - she had to honour her son by ensuring happiness. "I'm fine. I _will be_ fine."

"Okay. Although it is only going to get busier in here, so leaving probably isn't a bad idea. We don't get stuck in _that_ storm."

Leia's reassuring smile dissolved into a stifled giggle at Amilyn's remark. As easy as she could translate Amilyn's curious metaphors, one or two could always catch her off-guard: another thing about Amilyn that made her undeniably loveable. "Alright. I'll go wherever you want to."

"How about we walk around for a while? Just to get lost for a bit."

"That sounds wonderful." Leia's words were genuine, even if they sounded directly from the mouth of a prim princess at a dinner party. To be close to Amilyn, to hold her hand and tuck into her side as they were free from restrictions and responsibilities filled her with content.

Within minutes, their bill was paid and they were out in the streets bathed in the twilight colours of quinacridone red ands violets. Each passing streetlight glow was dim in comparison to the comet's trail the pair left behind; the giggles and warmth that undoubtedly emanated from people in sickeningly sweet love. Eventually their wandering led them to a park, one of the few natural spaces left in the urban sprawl. The lights were dimming there, elongating the shadows of the trees, but Leia had never felt safer with Amilyn by her side. Yet she did seize a little as she realised that it was the first time she had set foot in a park since Ben's death.

"Leia?" Amilyn questioned, looking down to the woman wrapped around her arm for warmth, "What i- oh I'm sorry, I should have asked."

"It's okay Am, really. I've got to think about him without pain sometime. You always say that 'happiness is our moral imperative', after all."

"That doesn't mean you have to rush yourself." Leia almost chuckled at the role reversal: her twenty year old self would have ever imagined Amilyn Holdo being calm and collected.

"I know." The barely didn't talk for the next few minutes, they didn't really need to. They knew each other well enough for silence to be comfortable, only the passing birds and cars in the far distance accompanied them. "Let's go home?"

"Sure." Amilyn again leaned down to kiss Leia, both women thoroughly enjoying the fact that they had the opportunity at almost anytime to touch and kiss each other without having to withhold themselves to their thoughts and longing glances. "Let's go home."


	11. xi

Amilyn and Leia settled into domesticity easily, like two jigsaw pieces slotting together. Their bad days were far from over, but little by little, they were healing and flourishing into the next stages of their lives. Leia returned to work full time but always managed to carve out time in her schedule for Amilyn as well as integrating her own self-care into her days, something which everyone around her appreciated.

"Luke? I'm off to see Amilyn now, can you make sure you lock everything when you leave?" Leia asked, gathering up her bag of datapads (with her workload, she had to take some of it home, but some of her best days were spent side by side with Amilyn with little noise between them but the shuffling of papers and the occasional comment).

"I will - I can't believe I haven't met her yet. When will I meet this mystery woman of yours?" He kicked himself up from Leia's armchair as if he had somewhere important to be (Leia knew he didn't - whenever he came to see his sister and lounge around her apartment he was always taking a day off from his Jedi searches).

Leia rolled her eyes, "She's not my 'mystery woman' Luke, we've been friends for years."

"Mmm. I wish you let me come along with you one time though, this would be a great study of how you interact with the Force-"

"It's not Force-related Luke, I know that for sure. Now go, before you annoy me." Leia shooed.

"Love you too Leia!" He cheekily called, unable to keep from being a (lovingly) annoying sibling when he was around Leia in private.

Once Luke had left, Leia focused herself on Amilyn, and sure enough she was in Amilyn's living room half a second later. In Amilyn's living room and surrounded by rolled up tissues that had been thrown at and missed the bin.

"Are you alright Amilyn?" Leia turned around to see her girlfriend lying down, taking up all the room on her couch with her length and duvet tucked up to her nose.

"Mmm fine," Amilyn replied, her muffled words barely audible. Raising her chin, the duvet fell away enough so Leia could see her whole face. "It's just a cold. Something's probably blocked where I haven't been doing enough meditation lately."

Surveying Amilyn, Leia concluded that some parts of her body probably were blocked, but it most likely due to a lack of medication rather than meditation. While Amilyn's eyes were as bright as usual, Leia could see the effects of fever from even a few feet away. "Are you sure it's not anything worse?" Leia strode to join Amilyn, even planted a swift kiss on her cheek (a more enthusiastic greeting would have to wait - Leia knew flu when she saw it and was determined not to get sick too).

"It's fine." Amilyn repeated. "All this aching is totally fine. It's just where Mercury's rising this week."

Leia smiled, her heart having swelled at how adorable she found Amilyn even when Amilyn was sniffling and sweaty from a fever. "We can't go out tonight then?"

Considering her thoughts, Amilyn paused before relenting, "It's probably for the best if I stay at home."

"You're being sensible for once, maybe you should get ill more often." Leia teased, just as content at staying in with Amilyn as she would have been travelling the galaxy with her. "Do you need anything?"

"No I've got my painkillers right here." Amilyn produced a flattened box of tablets from beneath her duvet (this one was adorned with the mountainous landscapes that Amilyn had once climbed just to find somewhere peaceful to be, apparently), as well as prodding Leia with her toe.

"Alright then, scoot over," Leia patted where she assumed Amilyn's legs until Amilyn pulled them upwards so she could sit at the foot of the sofa. "Have you got another episode of that drama serial yet? The one where the redhead and the spooky guy chase aliens?"

"Leia we watched the last one two days ago, we've got another five days yet."

"But that ending! They can't just leave it like that!" Leia protested, mostly just to amuse Amilyn who she was sure was more ill than she pretended to be, or at least was only in the beginning stages of flu.

"As much as I would love to get into the complexities, or in some cases simplicities depending on your perspective, of what goes through film-makers' heads, I fear that I wouldn't do it justice because I am about to fall asleep right now." Amilyn said, sinking back under her duvet with a yawn.

"Alright, I'm fine to stay with you and finish going through these reports. Coruscant want to legalise recreational spice, they think it will help reduce crime and increase public savings but their senators cannot agree on anything with each other half the time, I swear they-" Leia rambled on, talking more to herself than to Amilyn but paused to look at her girlfriend, who was sleepily gazing at Leia herself with a droopy smile on her face. Such a sight caused Leia's own lips to tuck upwards in love.

"You can carry on, I feel like we've got relevant issues here too. I'll tell you about them tomorrow, once I've had a proper nap. It's actually quite interesting, the -" Amilyn broke off into a yawn again, "The figures are…"

Leia laughed at Amilyn trailing off. "Go to sleep Am, I'll be right here when you wake up." To punctuate her statement, Leia crawled over the sofa to lightly kiss the crown of Amilyn's head.

Amilyn made a another muffled noise from beneath the blankets: some kind of sigh and agreeing tone that Leia couldn't make out the words of. "I love you too Am." Pulling out some datapads from her bag, Leia set to work on her galaxy's future with Amilyn's rhythmic breathing and occasional soft snores for company.

A few hours later, after the sun had slid below the horizon and Amilyn's apartment was getting too dark to work in, Leia prodded Amilyn awake.

"You've had your nap, do want some food? How much have you eaten today?" Leia murmured.

"I'mmgoing back...to sleep." Amilyn tumbled over her words in her tiredness.

"You should go to bed then. Come on, I'll help you."

If Amilyn was alert enough, she probably would have glared at Leia for interrupting her sleep. But since she was so ill, she simply let her body respond naturally to Leia gently pushing her to her feet. Leia managed to guide Amilyn to her bedroom despite the sizeable height difference, and Amilyn fell almost immediately back to sleep. As Leia tucked her duvet around her, Amilyn whispered a slurred 'I love you too.".

As much as Leia wished to spend the night curled up next to Amilyn, she also wanted to stay well enough to look after Amilyn, so with a quick promise to be back in the morning, Leia jumped back to her own apartment for the night. It felt empty without Amilyn, but at least the night back on Hosnian Prime allowed her to clear her schedule for the next three days - Amilyn was going to need her.

* * *

Barely half an hour into waking up, Leia was already back in Amilyn's apartment having left a note to Luke in her own. Amilyn awoke to the clangs from her kitchen that indicated Leia rifling through her cupboards to make tea and battle with the toaster. Despite her relief and having Leia so near to her, Amilyn couldn't call out to her, for her own illness had developed into full-blown flu - she ached in every joint and her throat was sandpaper-dry. Frustrated, Amilyn shifted in her bed and had little choice but wait for Leia to come in of her own accord.

After a few minutes of Amilyn drumming her fingers to an inaudible tune, Leia appeared in her bedroom doorway with two mugs, which were most likely coffee for Leia and tea for Amilyn. "Strawberry?" Amilyn croaked, enquiring about the kind of tea Leia had made up for her.

"Strawberry." Leia confirmed, walking over to the bed to set the hot drinks down on Amilyn's mahogany bedside table. "I also made us toast, if you're up to it?"

Amilyn shook her head to say no, but quickly stopped when a stabbing headache exploded in her. "Painkillers."

"They're here," Leia picked them up from the bedside table where she had left them the previous night, so Amilyn could easily reach them if she needed to. "You don't feel any better then?"

"No," Amilyn croaked, knowing Leia was too empathetic to be smug about Amilyn's previous denial of having flu. "My throat hurts."

"I think I saw some soothers in a drawer, shall I get them?" Leia asked, hovering by Amilyn's bedside like an eager nurse.

"Please." Amilyn replied, thoroughly miserable at being so ill.

"I'll be right back." Leia promised, and after a quick kiss to Amilyn's forehead, she was back in the kitchen. Amilyn's eyelids drooped against her will - she wanted to stay awake and appreciate being with Leia, but unconsciousness enveloped her in just a few heartbeats.

* * *

Having searched through Amilyn's kitchen drawers and found the throat soothers (among some other trinkets that Leia was sure no one else kept in their kitchens), Leia returned to Amilyn's bedside. The sight of her sleeping was too adorable for Leia to contain her smile: even though Amilyn was gaunt with illness and her long limbs were sprawled out at strange angles Leia couldn't help but find her cute - Amilyn's strangeness drew Leia in even more than it pushed others away. Leia left Amilyn to sleep, instead setting to work around the apartment to make it as comfortable for Amilyn as possible.

Realising that Amilyn most likely wouldn't be able to walk very far, Leia decided that moving the television into the bedroom would be a good idea. She could prop Amilyn up against the headboard next to her and they could watch trashy shows or comedy films together, as they always did when they needed a break. Leia just had to ensure she remembered where all the wires went first.

Half an hour later, Leia had successfully positioned the television unit on Amilyn's dresser without waking her up, but she still had yet to get a signal. "You shouldn't have to be an engineer to do this," Leia muttered, annoyed with her lack of knowledge about the basic appliances of Amilyn's. Between being a princess and a rebel, she had little use for such tools. If it wasn't an overheated blaster, then she got a mechanic to fix it, but she was determined not to give in and ask for help. This would be a nice surprise for Amilyn. "Half of this was colour coded, why couldn't they have done that for the whole thing?"

After a few experimental twists and pulls of the wire to the antenna, the television clicked to life. Quickly turning it off before the noise disturbed Amilyn, Leia couldn't help but let a little victory hiss of " _Yes!"_ slip.

"Hmmm?" Amilyn stirred from across the room.

"Nothing, Am. How are you feeling?" Leia asked, immediately back at her side.

An incomprehensible murmur emanated from beneath the blankets in reply; Leia pulled the duvet back to reveal Amilyn's face. "I'm hungry."

"How about I make some soup? It'll be easy to eat." Leia suggested, stroking Amilyn's aqua hair.

"I feel sick." Amilyn certainly looked like she felt sick: her face had not regained any colour with sleep. Her voice had changed from a sleep-coated croak to a pathetic whisper. She was a far cry from the woman who stood tall in debates and against malicious mutterings.

"Okay, you sit up and I'll get you a bowl with the soup hm?"

"Love you." The endearment tumbled easily from her lips, as it had been with increasing regularity over the past year.

"I know; I love you too. I'll go and get that soup."

While Leia busied herself with the heating of tomato soup, her mind was preoccupied. She and Amilyn had never really discussed their changed relationship, they just fell into it as if it was waiting for them the whole time. Neither of them had given any indication of ever wanting an out, but did that mean that they would always want to be in? Stirring the soup, Leia watched the liquid swirl as if hypnotising herself. Her mind worried when she thought about another long-term relationship, however she was certain that she'd never willingly leave Amilyn. Deciding that she would talk to Amilyn about her ruminations when she was better, Leia poured the soup into a bowl and took it into Amilyn, her heart finding home.

"Hey," Leia cooed as she settled into bed next to Amilyn and handed her the bowl of soup. "It's tomato."

"Thanks, but…" Amilyn began sadly. "I can't eat."

"You haven't eaten anything all day. And what about yesterday, how much did you have to eat then?" Leia wouldn't give up. Amilyn pursed her lips and made a noise of refusal. "Every spoonful means a kiss."

That caused Amilyn to reconsider. She took a few seconds to stare at Leia before replying, "No, then you'll get ill too."

"Every bite means I owe you a kiss."

"Okay I'm counting." Amilyn's reply was so immediate Leia chuckled.

"I've set the TV up for you, so you don't have to walk around when you're aching and won't get bored." Leia informed her, a little pride seeping through her words.

Amilyn's answering smile hid a grimace. "Sixteen. You're so proud of yourself." Another spoonful of soup: "Seventeen."

"Well, only half of it was colour-coded. I figured the rest of it out myself." Leia paused to survey Amilyn, "Is the soup helping?"

"Well I'm not really hungry anymore," Amilyn stopped counting to wipe soup away from around her mouth. "But that nausea feeling is _way_ worse. Like rollercoaster worse."

Leia wrapped her fingers around Amilyn's wrist that was holding the bowl of soup. "We've gotten through worse. And I've got an empty bowl next to me just in case you feel sick."

Amilyn continued with her soup, although at a slightly slower pace. After he twenty-fifth spoonful however, her hand faltered as the spoon fell into the bowl and her face twisted. "Leia-"

Leia had already threw the empty bowl in front of Amilyn and gathered her long hair back as Amilyn retched over the bowl.

"That's it Am, let it all out." Leia soothed as she rubbed Amilyn's back and placed the soup on the bedside table as to oppose it toppling over. "Sorry for making you eat that soup."

"No it's okay." Amilyn gasped, "This was going to happen either way."

Leia continued in her ministrations of comfort until Amilyn was sure she was done. Once she had cleaned up the bowl, Leia returned to Amilyn and the pair simply sat with one another, Amilyn's head leaning on Leia's shoulder, watching reruns of old sitcoms. Well, Amilyn paid as much attention as she was able, which wasn't much, while Leia alternated between chuckling at the TV and stealing glances of Amilyn. "Won't you get ill if you're so close to me all the time when I'm like this?" Amilyn questioned.

"I don't care." Leia stated, pushing back a loose lock of Amilyn's hair. "You need me here, so I'm here."

"You're here more than just when I need you. Although sometimes when I think of you I wonder if I do need you all the time." Amilyn replied. Leia knew Amilyn knew what she was saying even if her eyes were a little glazed.

"I have no intention of leaving you Amilyn, ever." The words that Leia had intended to wait until Amilyn was better to say blurted out of her unconfined. "Sometimes I worry about being with someone for the rest of my life - I haven't the best track record - but then I remember it's you and I'm balanced again. You're my best friend, my girlfriend, my partner."

"I knew it was going to be you, always. It started off as something I could brush off as a crush - it probably was - but I always knew we would be partners for life in one way or another." Amilyn's voice was intermittent: it was the most she had talked all day. Leia knew what she was saying, what she meant. A decade and a half of experience meant that she was fluent in Amilyn's occasionally odd threads of conversation.

A shrill repetitive beep interrupted their words. "You can take another flu tablet Amilyn." Leia untangled herself from Amilyn and reached for the packet of tablets and a fresh glass of water. "Here you g-oh." Amilyn gulped down the proffered pills without realising what Leia had.

"What?"

"Those were the last of the packet. You don't have any more packets in the kitchen either, I would have picked them out by now." Leia answered.

"Oh. Well if we just wait for this lot to kick in I can-"

"Absolutely not," Leia interrupted, already knowing what Amilyn was going to suggest. "This is the first day of you being so ill, if you go out now you'll over-exert yourself and make yourself worse. I'll do it."

Amilyn only stared at her blankly at Leia's declaration. "You are going out to get them?"

"I've bought things from shops here before." Leia asserted.

"With me. And remember that time you-" Amilyn replied, clearly feeling a little better as the medication set to work.

"I'll be fine. Just tell me where to go and what to get." Leia still had her fire, always at least a little stubborn. When it came to Amilyn's comfort and safety, even Amilyn herself couldn't cool her down completely, as protective as Leia was due the horrors she had witnessed in her own universe.

"Fine." Amilyn sighed. "My purse is on the living room table, _use the black card._ There's a corner shop just down the road to the left. Take the empty packet with you so know what to get."

"I can shop Amilyn. Now rest." Leia swooped in for another kiss before leaving Amilyn to the humour of the comedy channel.

* * *

Once the programme ended, Amilyn gathered herself together to take a walk around the apartment. If she saw one more advert for some company's latest vacuum cleaner with that catchy jingle she would burst. It took a minute and a lot of effort, but Amilyn managed to get up, go to the toilet, and even bring back a glass of water to the bedroom. Satisfied with herself but also immeasurably exhausted, she tucked herself back onto the bed to wait for Leia.

She didn't have to wait long; the small _click_ of the door shutting announced Leia's arrival. "Amilyn, I'm home!" Leia appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. "I've got your cold and flu medication." She produced said box from the bag. "I wasn't sure how much to get, so I got a few boxes." Reaching again, she pulled out another four boxes.

Amilyn laughed in surprise, despite the pain in her stomach. "You bought _five?_ I thought there was a limit on how many you could buy."

"Oh there was. The vendor was a little worried, and he said he wasn't legally allowed to sell me more than that, which is just ridiculous really, what if you were- Why are you looking at me like that?" Leia's incredulous expression only increased Amilyn's amusement: the flutter in her heart wasn't due to her illness.

"They have medication in them that is dangerous in large doses, so you can't buy dangerous amounts and poison someone with them." Amilyn explained, her loopy grin at Leia's tirade still plastered across her face.

"Oh. I see." Leia composed herself before continuing, "I also got these. I didn't realise that your world's shops sold things to unblock you spiritually."

Amilyn frowned a little, confused. "They don't usually, not in little corner stores. What did you buy?"

Leia handed over several more boxes as she sat down on the bed next to Amilyn. "You said yesterday about spiritual blockage, so I thought that I would humour you and stock up on stuff to help. I'm sure you've got lots of wards and teas already, but they can't have completely worked if- why are you laughing again?"

Having read the label of the tiny package, Amilyn let out a full-throated laugh that she had been trying to stifle while Leia was talking. The aches of her illness still clawed at her stomach, but she was too lost in laughter to care. "This is not for spiritual blockage." She choked out. "It's for constipation."

Leia was still lost. "What's constipation?" That only made Amilyn laugh harder, her limp hair sliding over her back as she threw her head back. Knowing she wasn't going to be able to explain with a clear face, she handed Leia the box back to read. "Oh." Was all Leia said after reading the instructions. "It's not that funny."

Amilyn was still giggling. "Yes it is."

Dropping the royal composure, a shadow of a smile crossed Leia's face. "Maybe it is a little bit."

"I'm sure that sales clerk was having the time of his life serving you. Did you get anything else?" Amilyn wiped the corners of her eyes, brushing away the tears of mirth that had formed.

"I bought bubblegum. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds fun, and it's strawberry flavoured apparently. You go on a lot about spontaneity and happiness, so…"

Bringing a hand up to cup Leia's cheek, Amilyn leaned down to kiss her. "You're very cute. Thank you for this."

Leia relaxed under Amilyn's gentle touch. "Any time, Am."

The couple simply sat there for a minute or two, comfortable in the other's embrace. Even if Amilyn wasn't ill, they would have spent time just sitting together, appreciating the fact that they could hold each other without interruption.

"You know the real reason I wanted to go so badly is so that I could see what you did in public next."

"Oh shut up." Leia laughed, playfully swatting Amilyn on her arm.

"No really, it's nice seeing you so carefree, acting like you're thirteen rather than thirty-one." Amilyn laced her hand with Leia's, forever intertwined.

"To be fair, I wasn't a normal thirteen year old. And I know _you_ were definitely not."

"Hm." Amilyn hummed, "Maybe the flu is good for the both of us then."

The pair chuckled, content with each other.

Amilyn was far from well in the following days, but Leia was with her more often than not; the favourite part of Amilyn's days quickly became when she woke up in Leia's arms just before dawn (even the flu could not tamper that habit) - the sickly sweat of their embrace was nothing compared to seeing Leia in the glow of the world just before sunrise, beautiful in the halo of light. After another two days when Amilyn was well enough to shower by herself, Leia begrudgingly returned to work - she didn't want to shirk from her responsibilities but Amilyn pushed her to go, knowing she could make her own soup again (although the warmth Leia brought with her was more uplifting than the warmth of any soup). Their lives slowly returned to normal, until:

"Leia? Are you okay?" Amilyn enquired to the bundle on her sofa, a week after her own recovery from the flu.

"I'm sick." Came the miserable voice under the blankets.

"Strawberry tea?" Amilyn offered.

"Please."

Amilyn wandered into her a kitchen, a soft smile on her face. She didn't _want_ Leia to be ill but that meant another few uninterrupted days with her partner. She could think of little better.


	12. xii

The mystery that Amilyn was never able to go back to Leia's world never bothered the couple; they happily lived both apart and together throughout their lives. Leia had her increasingly more embellished apartments in the politically important Core Worlds and her political career, while Amilyn progressed up her own career ladder and even gained a few close friends through her astrology habits. They even met Leia once, when the couple were walking on the hills above Amilyn's city to avoid light pollution so Amilyn could try to teach Leia stargazing for the hundredth time, and Leia found them almost as charming in their oddity as she found Amilyn.

The seasons changed with Amilyn's hair; when she got to her fortieth year she came to the conclusion that, once again, the length of it wasn't fitting to her anymore, and cut it down to just below her jawline where it was wavier than ever. Leia liked to inform her that it looked sexy, that Amilyn looked more commanding, even. In their forty-second year Leia's own hair grew out with streaks of grey, although she chuckled that it was surprising that it hadn't changed earlier - taking part in a galactic rebellion was enough to turn her whole head grey by age twenty.

It was on one such night when the pair were discussing hair, politics, and other nonsense when Amilyn asked: "You're not worried about your hair, are you?"

Leia paused for a moment, wine glass in hand, to consider the question. "No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Some people worry about their hair going grey, and other signs of aging. They can go through this… mid life crisis." Amilyn answered, her gaze never leaving Leia as she brought her own wine glass up to her lips and leaving a lipstick print.

Leia smiled, her eyes twinkling black stars in the low light. "I'm far from a mid life crisis I think. I've got you, I've got Luke… I'm happy."

"I'm glad. It wouldn't do for you to think that you hadn't made a lasting impact and need to spend your life savings on something materialistic to make up for it." Amilyn continued in her usual dreamy monotone that she hadn't managed to shake over her life, although she hadn't wanted to.

"You're not thinking that, are you?" Leia leaned forward from her end of the sofa so she was bent over their entwined legs. She didn't believe Amilyn was worried about something that was so trivial to her, but Amilyn had a roundabout way of saying things.

"Oh no," Amilyn laughed as Leia relaxed back into her cushions, relieved. "What we do on paper isn't what matters. It's our human connection that drives us, that really makes a lasting impact on people, if I were worried about that. How we are, rather than who we are, is what matters in the end."

"That is true."

"You've certainly gone down in your history books though, so you needn't worry." Amilyn raised her eyebrows as she took another sip of wine, swapping one red stain on her lips for another.

"Again, true, but that wasn't what I was aiming for. I believed in a cause, so I fought for it. That belief, that faith in democracy and anger against the Empire… that was all down to that human connection. Those emotions that drive us, where all the importance is. History books can't capture that."

A pleasant silence wrapped around them as the couple mulled over their thoughts and their drinks. They were bathing in that significant connection just by sitting there and sharing their lives, Leia realised. "I love you." She raised her eyes to Amilyn again as she spoke: a soft tone that escaped her. She hadn't necessarily meant to be spontaneous in her proclamation of love, but she felt as though her heart was so full it was spilling over. Of course Amilyn knew how she felt anyway, but it was healthy to let the words tumble out of her lips whenever it felt natural for them to.

"I love you too." Amilyn replied automatically but not insincerely. Another heartbeat, and then, "Our story isn't over, is it?"

Leia smiled again, this time in reassurance for Amilyn. "Just because there is and has been no drama does not mean that our lives are over. Having good things and being happy isn't necessarily mindless, or unworthy. Isn't that what I fought for, all those years ago?"

"Sometimes I feel as if though this is all too good to be true. But this is the state of things, and I am both fortunate enough and have worked hard enough for it to be so." Amilyn reflected, her gaze off-kilter. "Those twenty years feel like twenty lifestimes. I'm glad that we may be in this 'mindless' state, I couldn't bear to fret over you now as I did then. Of course I know, and I knew then that you were capable but God…" She broke off to wave her hand not holding the wine glass, "You, we deserve this. This rest, this peace."

Leia leaned towards her again, this time taking Amilyn's loose hand. "Thank you. I'm grateful for this respite too. It isn't that peaceful all the time either, there is still violence around. Still slaves and Hutts and bounty hunters that won't rest until they murder their way to a fortune."

Amilyn interlaced her long fingers with Leia's and pulled them up to kiss Leia's hand. "You will always think that you haven't done enough, won't you?"

"Sometimes I wonder if our work will ever be done." While it seemed that Leia's eyes were boring into Amilyn's, her thoughts were elsewhere as if their anchor had just been pulled loose.

"Maybe it won't. We are complex beings; our natures are different. They may always be conflict. That depends on what our most basic state is."

"That's not reassuring Amilyn." Leia chuckled, grounded again.

"Okay, I'll try again: you were one of the leaders in a galactic civil war, restored democracy to the galaxy, still continuously work hard in the Senate to build as much of a peaceful meritocracy as you can, all while withstanding far more personal loss that anyone ever should to ensure that no one ever will again." Leia opened her mouth to speak, but Amilyn raised an eyebrow to halt the would-be interruption, "Don't tell me that's too much flattery either. I know you would fly across the galaxy and fire a blaster at every slave owner if you could. That's a connection that spreads throughout generations Leia."

Speechless, Leia simply sat and stared at her partner; Amilyn was rose gold in the flickering embers of her fireplace. Eventually, she responding with just: "I'm too old to do that now."

Immediately, Amilyn's demeanour changed: she put down her glass and pulled Leia to her feet. "There's no such thing. Not that I'm telling you go out and hunt down bounty hunters with a blaster, but," She paused again, throwing Leia a pointed look, "We can go out and do things. We always stay in too much anyway. Come on, if we hike we can be out of the city in no time."

Leia rolled her eyes playfully but set down her own glass anyway. "Okay. You do worry me sometimes though." She called as Amilyn excitedly hurried out in the hall to collect her boots. Knowing that an excited Amilyn would forget anything that wasn't in her brain, Leia (lovingly) made sure to pack a bag with a few necessities just in case. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see." Amilyn replied, ushering her out of the door and locking it only out of habit.

Avoiding the mid afternoon rush, the couple took a labyrinth of minor streets until they emerged out of the city and its suburbs in less than an hour. As soon as the treeline of the surrounding forest came into view, Leia put the pieces of Amilyn's jigsaw together. "We're going tree climbing?"

"Absolutely. You don't sound that enthusiastic about it, but I promise you, it's fun." Amilyn still had a firm grasp on Leia's hand as she led Leia up the hill.

"Well I have no doubt of that, it's just uh… exactly what I should have expected of you, honestly."

Amilyn grinned giddily, "When was the last time you let your body go, had some fun and just _feel_ the nature around you?"

Leia grinned back in spite of herself. "You make a good point." She marched swiftly for the remaining few metres and slapped her hand down on the closest tree trunk. "Come on then, show me how it's done."

"To really feel nature you need to work it out by yourself. Although maybe don't start with that one; there's safer ones further in." Again Amilyn took Leia by the hand to lead her.

"You, safety? I'm impressed."

Amilyn stopped short to turn to Leia. "When it comes to you, safety is paramount. We haven't come this far for you to break your neck falling from a broken branch that easily could have been avoided."

Having already come face to face with death multiple times, Leia was less shaken by the thought, although she wouldn't want anything of the sort to happen to Amilyn, so she empathised with her. "It's okay Am, this is fun, remember?"

"Yes." Amilyn's grin was back. "We could start with this one." She indicated a sturdy oak tree with many branches that spilled over the two like arms offering gifts. Leia followed Amilyn's signal, and began climbing - although with less grace. "You know, when I was younger, I was a little obsessed with death. I wanted to get closer and more comfortable with the inevitability of it."

"You still don't?" Leia called from two boughs below her, her worry flowing away as she got into a rhythm of the ascent.

"No, I can appreciate it for what it is. I don't have to focus my efforts on the morbid anymore."

"Lovely." Leia muttered to herself. concentrating on finding new handholds and pulling herself upwards.

"You okay down there?" Amilyn asked, swinging into a seated position on a bough metres above Leia. From anyone else, the words would have sounded patronising, yet Leia knew Amilyn was genuinely asking how she was doing.

"I'm okay." Leia replied. "I have to admit, this is actually fun." With the wind pulling at her face and a motivating burn in her muscles, Leia understood why Amilyn spent time to herself climbing.

A few minutes later, Leia had caught up to Amilyn; the couple had found two forked boughs side by side that were wide enough to seat them both comfortably - or as comfortable as anyone could get on rough bark. Through the vibrant leaves, the couple watched the sunset: a painting of intermingling royal golds and fiery oranges with hints of baby pinks rising from the horizon. Content, Leia snaked her hand around Amilyn's again. "This reminds me of this Inner Rim planet, Gatalenta."

"Oh?"

"I've been talking to their councils a lot recently - they have this tradition of setting slaves free if any are found on their planet, and I'm trying to incorporate similar ideas into New Republic law. Anyway, they have this… exercise, I guess is the best way to explain it, this style of dance. It's called skyfaring - they tie themselves up in scarves and make beautiful aerial art. I saw quite a show when I visited. They were so graceful, like you coming up here. You would have been good at it, in another life."

Amilyn cocked her head in interest, "Hm. I'll look out for that, the next time I see anything from your universe. It sounds interesting."

"You're interesting enough in this life though."

"We wouldn't have it any other way."

The couple continued to sit together through the varying temperatures as the sun shone and set, arms wrapped around each other. Basking in their love, each of them was truly the complement of the other.

It didn't matter where the other was throughout the rest of their lives (which were long and blissful), for both Amilyn and Leia had the sempiternal knowledge of where - and who - home was. Individually they were their own solar systems, but together they lit up universes. Eventually time wore on and as modern as they tried to be, age irreversibly changed them. It did not matter when or where Amilyn and Leia died, whether they were together or apart, for the couple knew that they would scatter into stardust and ultimately come together again, at peace.

 _fin_


End file.
